The Callisto Project
by Homura Bakura
Summary: [Halloween Special] When Yusei's friend Nerve sends him home with an old arcade machine, Yusei doesn't think anything of it. But when the game turns on, what old enemies will he awaken-and can his dearest friends survive the reopening of old traumas? [based on the Polybius creepypasta][rated T for gore and dark subjects]
1. Galaga

The door exploded open—which told Yusei that Lua was here.

He turned off the blowtorch and lifted his mask out of the way just in time to see Lua barreling down the stairs. He almost tripped on the last step, and his arms wheeled comically as he hopped forward on one foot a few inches. Yusei started to stand up, ready to run around his bike to try and catch him, but the boy managed to get his other foot underneath him and he planted himself.

"This is why you should take the stairs one at a time," Yusei said, shaking his head with a smile at Lua.

"But that takes too long!" Lua said.

His face was flushed, clearly he had run all the way here—he still had his backpack sagging from his shoulders, and he hadn't changed out of his school uniform yet. Wasn't it well past school time? He hadn't just gotten out, had he? Yusei checked the clock over the wall to confirm that he wasn't over thinking the time. No, it was several hours past school, he was right.

"What's up? Did you just come from school?" he said, wiping his hands off on his pants.

"Huh? Oh!"

He looked down at his jacket for a moment and then seemed to remember where he was.

"Oh, no, I've been out! But I saw Blitz when I was walking home from school and you'll never ever ever guess what he and Nerve and Taka are doing!"

Yusei hesitated, tilting his head to think about it. That's right, Nerve _had_ mentioned something about a new project that he and the others were potentially getting themselves involved with. But he had said it wasn't certain yet, and when it was, he'd probably be dragging Yusei over to help.

Then he realized that Lua was literally vibrating, his eyes wide and bright as he waited for Yusei to ask him what they were doing. Yusei couldn't help but laugh softly.

"I guess I can't guess," he said, smiling. "What _are_ Blitz, Nerve, and Taka doing?"

"It's an arcade!" Lua burst out, as though he had just been about to explode before Yusei asked. "They got an old arcade, and they're gonna fix it up and open it again!"

Yusei blinked. An arcade? Oh, that's right—Taka always _was_ into fiddling with those old machines, wasn't he? Yusei couldn't help but smile. Another dream coming true now that the walls between the City and Satellite had fallen...it was a nice feeling.

Lua grabbed Yusei's hand and tugged on it.

"Come on, you have to see! Oh, wait, you're not busy, are you?"

Yusei found himself laughing again—it was nice to feel this light and carefree for once.

"Hang on, hang on," he said. "There's no rush, I'm sure. Let me change out of my greasy clothes, and I'll tag along."

"Okay!"

Yusei smiled again, ruffling Lua's hair lightly before he turned back towards the loft to change. He took in a deep breath as he walked—comforting air that smelled faintly of gas and metal. He had nowhere to be today, nowhere to rush...it was nice, feeling like this. Nothing hanging over his head, for once. He could just get up and go visit a friend because he wanted to.

A treacherous part of his brain whispered at him though—the part of him that was still the wary boy from Satellite.

 _How long can such good things last?_

. . .

Lua kept running a few feet ahead of Yusei and then running back, clearly chafing at the pace in his excitement to get back to the arcade. Yusei couldn't help but smile at Lua's exuberance. It was a cool, clear October afternoon, and he was grateful for his jacket. Just the right amount of warm coziness matched with the briskness of the day. It was a quiet afternoon, with just a few people taking up residence in the cafes on either side of the street, just a few groups of chattering teens with shopping bags wandering down the sidewalk.

Yusei saw the arcade loom up as they approached, a somewhat taller and more noticeable building among the other clean cut shops and cafes. It was a dark, stand-out black with a sign that would probably glow red in the dark. Smooth sections in dark blue stars covered the walls, and Yusei assumed that those were supposed to light up too, to give the arcade a galaxy sort of look. It matched the name, _Spiral Galaxy Arcade._

The big glass doors were propped open with what appeared to be a pair of old sandals wedged beneath them, and as Yusei and Lua made their way across the street, Nerve appeared from inside the dusty shadows, hauling a box of wires to drop beside the door. He glanced up, and a smile broke over his face to see Yusei.

"Yo, Yus!" he shouted. He pulled off his bandanna for a moment to wipe his brow, then slipped it back over his head. "Didn't know you were coming, I would have told the others to hang around before they went to grab lunch!"

"Lua insisted that I had to see what you guys had going over here," Yusei said, grinning as Lua practically dragged him across the street. "When did you guys get a hold of this? This is the first I've heard of it."

"It was supposed to be a surprise," Nerve said, putting one finger to his nose. Then laughed that big belly laugh of his. "Well, it was really supposed to be a 'hey, by the way, we need your help fixing shit, wanna come over and get paid in food'?"

He laughed again, and Yusei had to chuckle himself.

"Well, lucky for you, my schedule is mostly open this week," he said. "I don't have a problem giving you guys a hand. In exchange for the food, of course."

"You drive a tough bargain," Nerve said, punching him on the shoulder with a grin. "Well, not much to do quite yet, but you could help me sort through all the shit that's going to have to get replaced."

He reached down into the box he had set down and dragged up a clipboard, tapping it against Yusei's chest so that he would take it.

"You could roll out some of the machines from the back, too, check them against the inventory. Don't want to find out I got stiffed a few Tetris machines."

"No problem, I can do that," Yusei said, taking the clipboard. He leaned over to look inside,but it was still pretty shadowy and dark, with just a few motes of dust swirling from inside. "It's still pretty dark in there—the electricity running yet?"

"That switchboard's a goddamn nightmare, let me tell you," Nerve said, rolling his eyes. "I'm honestly afraid to touch anything until Blitz gives it a look. Wires going everywhere—flip a switch and I might set the whole thing on fire."

"Want me to look at that while I'm here, too?"

"Sure, if you like torturing yourself. Go ahead on inside, I'll call Taka and let 'em know we're gonna need an extra sandwich."

Yusei smiled as Nerve punched him lightly on the shoulder again while he passed, fumbling in his pocket for his phone.

"Come on, you have to see inside, it's great!" Lua said.

"You have to give me a second to breathe before I move," Yusei said, laughing. "Okay, okay."

Lua's excitement was as contagious as always, and Yusei followed his bouncing form into the dusty shadows of the arcade. It took him a few moments to adjust to the lighting and make out more than faint shapes.

It looked like a fairly ordinary arcade, rows of machines in aisles and along the walls. There were some racing games that he recognized, with fake D-Wheels to sit on while you played, and a few old puzzle games that he remembered Taka fixing up once for Rally and the other kids to play back in Satellite. There were a few empty spaces in the aisles, probably machines that were in storage. He ran one hand along the closest machine, and brought up a gloveful of dust across his palm.

"This place has been out of business for a while, huh?" he said.

"Yeah!" Lua called back from behind a row of machines. "I don't remember it ever being open before, but I always looked in the windows when I was going to school!"

Yusei saw his head pop out from behind Pac-Man, his grin bright enough to light up the whole arcade.

"I can't wait to see all the retro stuff they have! The one up town only has new stuff, they take out all the old machines once they're ten years old."

"What a waste," Yusei murmured, tracing through the dust on the screen. He looked up then, wondering where he would find the electric board.

"Hey, hey, Yusei, is there anything I can do to help?"

Yusei hesitated before he remembered the clipboard under his arm.

"You wanna check the inventory?" he said, holding it out. "Just check off the ones that you find on the list, make sure everything is here."

Lua's eyes lit up and he ran over to grab the clipboard.

"I'll make sure I find all of them!" he said.

He dropped his backpack with a clunk to the ground and then raced off. Yusei had to shake his head, smiling. Kids—they had so much energy.

Now...where was that electrical board?

. . .

"You're going to make me look bad, Yusei! I can't believe you got the wires all sorted out already!"

Blitz shook his head with disbelief at the lit up arcade, fixing his glasses as he gave Yusei an incredulous grin.

"I haven't gotten anything running yet, just the lights," Yusei said. "It's just...relaxing. Working with wires."

It had only been about an hour since he had arrived; he had found the electrical board incredibly stress-relieving, and it hadn't taken him long to figure out how to get the lights on and the front of the building glowing. He wasn't sure about all the arcade set up yet, but figured there was time for that. Still, in the time it had taken Blitz, Taka, and Rally to get back with the sandwiches, Yusei had managed to get the lights on, and evidently that was enough to make Blitz look at him like he was some kind of wire.

"Well, you saved us a hell of a lot of trouble," Nerve said with a barking laugh, slapping Yusei on the shoulder. "You're one hell of a magician with machines!"

"Keep overachieving and we're going to have to actually pay you," Taka said.

Yusei laughed as he crumpled up his sandwich wrapper.

"You really don't have to. This is going to be great for you guys—I'm just glad I can help."

"You know, I was joking when I said I was only going to pay you in food," Nerve said. "I can't ask you to help out around here and not give you anything back."

"And I don't need anything back," Yusei said. "Really, Nerve, I don't. I'm glad to be able to help my friends out. And this is kind of my go-to relaxation anyway."

"What about that bike of yours, I thought that was your stress relief," said Taka.

"That's the thing that I need stress relief _from_ , honestly," Yusei said. "What with the WRGP coming up sooner rather than later..."

He ran a hand through his hair, his head suddenly spinning with numbers and program codes. Ugh. He had thought he was getting a break from that program for a while.

"You guys would be doing me a favor by letting me help you out, so really, I can't accept any money from you guys."

"Dammit, Yusei, we're not poor ass Satellite junkrats anymore," Nerve said. "Let me—"

"Hey, guys! Rally and I found something that's not on the list, what do I do?"

Lua's voice floated from the back storage room, a distant echo in the dust. Yusei glanced back towards the door, then back at the others. Nerve looked surprised, his lip jutting with confusion.

"Not on the list at all?" he said. "Man, when I said check the inventory, I thought we were gonna be short...not _extra_."

Yusei shrugged and walked towards the storage room. Nerve and Taka followed, while Blitz muttered something about them all being ridiculous messes, starting to scoop up wrappers to go the trash.

Yusei leaned in through the door. Rally and Lua hovered in the corner, just visible behind a line of machines. Lua turned to see Yusei and waved him over.

"I've never heard of this one," he said as the others met up.

"Me neither!" Rally said. "We never saw any of these in the junkyards. Taka, do you know? You know a lot about arcade games!"

Taka frowned as he came around Yusei and Nerve. Lua and Rally parted to let Taka at the machine. Taka frowned, rubbing his chin. He poked at a few of the controls.

"Never seen a pad like this," he said, his fingers running over the very strange button structure. There were five of them, all laid outwards in a pentagon and each a different unique color. The joystick was right in the middle of the buttons for some reason, and the ball on the end seemed to have been flattened, with another button on top of it. There were three more buttons in a row to the left, all three of them yellow. Otherwise, it looked like an ordinary machine.

Yusei squinted at the title—it was in English, and the katakana reading underneath had been rubbed away, so it took him a second to understand it.

"C...Ca...Callisto?" he said. The subtitle was luckily in Japanese, and he read that easily. "'A puzzling shoot 'em up adventure.'"

"Looks like it might have been a short run, maybe?" Taka said. "I've never heard of it...but there are a lot of games I haven't heard of."

He frowned at the controls again, muttering something like 'how are you even supposed to be able to manipulate these controls?'

Yusei walked around to the side—the back had been pulled off, and there was a mess of wires inside. He saw boxes and unlit lights all in a chaotic mess inside, a configuration that didn't even make any sense to him. Hm, what did all of this machinery even do? It looked complicated, much more complicated than an arcade game should be. He leaned down to start pushing wires apart, curious about it's inner workings.

"Looks like it's been dead for a while," he said, tilting his head to look at the workings. "Wow...I haven't seen anything like this..."

When he looked up from the inner workings, he found that Nerve was grinning at him.

"What?" Yusei said.

"That face you're making—you always get that face when you really want to fix something."

"Well...yeah...this is a pretty interesting set up in here..."

Nerve clapped once.

"Then you take it," he said.

"Huh? What, no, I can't—"

"Yus, it's not on our inventory, and it looks like we won't have a spot for it anyway. And you won't let me pay you, so at least take this thing with you so that you can use it to blow off steam or whatever."

"Nerve, I—"

"That okay with you, Taka?"

"Sounds fine to me," said Taka. "But let me know how it plays when you get it running!"

"Guys—"

"I want to play it when you're done! Can I Yusei?" Rally said.

"Me too!" said Lua.

It looked like Yusei wasn't going to be able to get a word in edgewise. Geez. These friends of his. He sighed, rolling his eyes.

"Fine," he said. "But if I take it, I don't want to hear another word about you guys paying me. And you're going to help me lug it back to the garage."

"You drive such hard bargains," Taka said. "Nerve, wanna help me hook up the trailer so we can 'lug this back to the garage'?"

"On it," Nerve said. He winked exaggeratedly at Yusei before heading off with Taka.

"I'm so excited! I wonder what kind of game it is!" said Lua.

He and Rally ran off after Nerve and Taka, chattering about what it would probably be like. Yusei shook his head. Geez.

Then he turned back to the machine, with its mysterious buttons and inner workings. He put a hand on its side, tilting his head at it.

"Wonder what kind of secrets you've got in you..." he murmured.

. . .

 **A/N: It's time for a HALLOWEEN SPECIAL :D I'm suuuuuper psyched for this one, like for real, this is going to be great (and it will NOT drag on as long as What Lies Within haha). PLEASE BE WARNED, HOWEVER! This story is seriously not going to be for the faint of heart. It will contain brainwashing, implications of child abuse/torture, psychological trauma, references to abusive relationships, and some blood and gore. Please please please be cautious for yourself if these are things that might hurt you! I will tag chapters at the beginning when they're going to contain the worst of it, but please take care of yourself first. Anyway, with that out of the way, I really hope you enjoy this year's Halloween special!**


	2. Asteroids

Yusei almost didn't hear the door slam open this time over the buzz of his power tools. A face popped around the side of the machine, and he swore. It took every bit of his discipline to make sure he didn't jump, and send sparks into Rally's face.

Yusei quickly turned off the tool as Rally jumped back a little bit.

"Goddamn, Rally, you should know better than that," Yusei said, his heart thwumping in his chest.

Rally blushed.

"Sorry, Yusei," he said. "I just wanted to see what you were working on! You said you were going to clean out the sub section today, right? See if that cleared out the interference?"

Yusei's stress filtered out now that the tool was turned off, and he had to smile. Rally was always dropping over to ask questions about Yusei's work—he kept saying that he wanted to be a mechanic like him and the others when he grew up. Yusei liked answering his questions; and besides, he really did like seeing Rally in that Duel Academy uniform. It fit him just right—he looked like he had spent his whole life in the City by now, with a nice glow to his cheeks that showed that he had finally been getting decent meals. It was always a welcome sight, a reminder of how far they had come from Satellite.

"Is it done?" Lua's voice called down the stairs. "How far are you, Yusei?"

Yusei laughed softly as Rally looked up to wave. Lua and Luka both appeared around the arcade machine, Lua's eyes as bright as ever, and Luka with that little, curious smile of hers. Rally scootched out of the way so that they could see the open back, with all of its wires.

"Well, I think I'm about ready to try and turn it on," Yusei said. "Looks like the only thing that was down was the sub section, everything else seems in pretty good order."

Which, he added privately, was a good thing, because these machine innards were the most complicated he had ever seen. None of the manuals about arcade machines that he had picked up from Taka or from the library could label half of this shit. He was thinking after he let the kids play with it for a while, he'd try taking it apart and seeing what it was made of. It would be a good side project to let off some steam—he was stressed enough as it was over this stupid engine program, and Crow didn't have a lot of time to help him now that he was tied down at two jobs.

"I want to play first!" Lua said.

"Oh, calm down," Luka said, shaking her head. "Everyone's going to get a turn."

Yusei laughed as he finished putting in a screw, then he closed up the sub section, and stood up, dusting his hands off on his jeans.

"Rally, you want to plug it in?" he asked, nodding to the auxilary cord.

"Yeah!"

Rally grabbed the end and ran over to the power strip, plugging it in. Yusei reached up to the top of the machine to fumble for the switch.

"Let's see if that did it," he said.

He pushed the button in. Immediately, he heard the buzz-crackle of static, like an old television turning on.

"Oooh, it's on! Look, it's on!"

"We have eyes, Lua, we can see," Luka said, with a roll of her eyes.

Yusei smiled as he leaned around to see the screen. Lua was already hovering over the controls, his face almost too close to the screen. Luka pulled him back slightly by his collar, so that Rally could also squeeze in around it.

The screen was fuzzy, and there were some lines of static running down it, but otherwise, it was making noise and the picture was visible. The title screen looked like a pixelated starry sky, with a big white moon in the center. Fancy font read _Callisto_ in English letters, and below it, the subtitle of _"a shoot-em-up puzzle adventure!"_ in Japanese.

"Whoaaaa!" Rally and Lua said almost at the same time. "Dibs!"

"Guys, you'll both get to play," Luka said. "Ugh. Yusei, tell them that they shouldn't fight over it."

Yusei chuckled.

"You're going to need a coin to use it anyway," he said, digging in his pocket for some change. "How about this—you guys can flip a coin for who gets to go first?"

"Okay!" Lua said. "I pick heads!"

"That sounds fine!" said Rally.

Yusei nodded, pulling a coin from his pocket. He flicked it into the air, catching it easily and slapping it down on the back of his other hand. He lifted his hand away to reveal the coin underneath.

"Tails," he said. "Here, Rally, you get to go first."

"Yay!"

"Awwww," Lua said, although he didn't look too disappointed. "Switch me in if you die, okay?"

Rally nodded, and then the three kids both crowded around the machine—even Luka looked interested despite her previous affected disinterest, her eyes shining as Rally fed the coin into the slot.

The screen flickered a few times as Rally put his hands on the joystick and the other buttons.

"How are you supposed to press the ones around the joystick?" he said, frowning. He rolled his hand around the joystick, but couldn't quite reach the buttons around it. "That seems weird."

"I'll push 'em for you if you need them," Lua said.

"Lua, don't crowd," Luka said. "Let Rally play himself first!"

Yusei hung back, folding his arms to watch the game unfold. The screen was black for a few seconds, with just a flicker of static. Then stars appeared again, like the title screen, and there was a slow zoom in on a moon. A short, pixelated old man with a white beard appeared on the screen, and a yellow word box appeared beside him.

" _Welcome, hero!"_ the words read across the screen. _"I am Jupiter, the head of the Galactic Council of Arcas! You have been summoned for an urgent mission on the moon Callisto—the princess Diana has been kidnapped by the evil lord Lycaon, and you must save her!"_

"Another save the princess game," Luka said, sounding disappointed. "It better be fun to play, at least."

"Luka, don't be a killjoy," Lua said.

The screen flickered again and a tiny hero in red appeared on one end of the screen, a white and gray background with platforms coming into place around it. Rally pushed a few buttons experimentally, and the character jumped, moved back and forth, and fired off a small blue ball of energy at the touches.

"It looks like Castlevania," Rally said. "Okay, let's try this..."

He edged the character forward. A little black pixel shape that might have been a bat appeared,waving up and down the screen towards him. Rally jumped over it, and moved forward to another enemy, a little green blob. He fired the blue ball at it a few times, but nothing happened.

"There's no tutorial at all," he complained. "Um..."

He moved his hand off of the joystick to try a few more buttons. It caused a couple more effects, including a little white energy disc and a glowing green whip, which actually destroyed the blob. Grinning with his success, Rally took the joystick again and moved forward through the sidescrolling game.

"Where's the puzzle part?" Luka said, frowning. "And this isn't really much of a shoot-em-up, either. It's a sidescroller..."

"Luka, you're doing the killjoy thing again," Lua said.

It looked like standard arcade fare in the end, despite its strange inner workings. Yusei nodded to himself as he saw the screen flicker again, a little afterimage flickering in the right corner. Probably some feedback in the visual readers, he'd have to clean that out a bit.

He was about to step back and leave the kids to their game when Rally's character jumped onto a red button, and the screen went black.

"Huh?" Rally said, moving the stick back and forth. "What happened? Did it short out?"

Yusei frowned. He took a step forward to see if he could figure out what was the problem, but Lua moved first.

"Here, hang on, let me try!" he said, grabbing the joystick from Rally. "Oh! It came back on!"

What? No it hadn't—the screen was still black.

"Hang on—oh, this is the puzzle part! Don't worry, I got this!"

"Lua, there's nothing on the screen, stop joking around," Luka said.

"Don't distract me, Luka!"

Lua's fingers flew over the buttons and manipulated the joystick with a speed that seemed well beyond what he should be able to do. His hand moved around the buttons around the joystick so fast that Yusei could barely see what he was doing.

"Ah! There!"

The screen suddenly flickered back on, and the little red hero was standing to the right of the big red button.

"Ah! Sorry, I didn't mean to steal it from you, Rally. Go ahead."

Lua let go of the joystick. Rally didn't take it back, though, looking at him with his nose wrinkled up.

"What?" Lua said.

"I didn't see anything happening on the screen," Yusei said. "What exactly...were you doing there?"

"Huh? What are you talking about?" Lua said, turning over his shoulder to look at Yusei. "You didn't see all of that? There were...there were..."

His words trailed off, his lips parting as his eyes glazed over for a moment, confused.

"I...there was something going on, I remember. Lots of...stuff. Huh. That's weird. I can't remember it."

For a few seconds, no one said anything. Yusei stared at the machine behind Lua's head. It flickered once more. Something must be really wrong with the visual cords...right? That was why it kept flickering, wasn't it?

Then Rally's hand slipped off of the side of the machine.

"Um, I think I'm done playing for now," he said. "Yusei, can I see what you're doing with the D-Wheel?"

Yusei blinked out of his reverie.

"Oh...sure," he said. "Are you guys done too?"

Lua's eyes slipped over to the machine.

"Is it okay if I try it a little longer? Before you shut it down?"

Yusei felt a sudden, odd crawling run down his arms. He should say no, he thought. He should definitely say no.

"Sure," was what came out of his mouth instead. "Just be careful. Let me know if the screen goes out again."

"Okay!"

Lua jumped eagerly back to the controls, starting to move his little hero across the screen. Yusei hovered for a second, his hands limp at his sides. He could see Luka hanging off to the side of the machine, her hands seeming to be halfway to reaching for each other, but never quite making it there. She looked concerned as she shifted from foot to foot.

Then Yusei remembered that Rally was waiting over by the D-Wheel, and, reluctantly, he took his eyes away from the screen.

It was nothing, right? It was just a weird old arcade machine.

Just...just an arcade machine.

 **. . .**

"Lua-kun, are you all right?"

Lua's head snapped up from his desk to the sound of quiet snickers from his classmates. He blinked a few times, brightly colored shapes flickering over his vision. Where was he? Oh—right, classroom. He was in the classroom. His book was propped up in front of his fact, and his cheeks hurt. He must have been sleeping, or something.

He flushed when he realized the teacher was staring down at him.

"I—I'm okay," he mumbled.

"Are you sure?" she said, raising an eyebrow at him. "Do you need to go to the nurse's office?"

"N-no, ma'am, I'm fine," Lua said. "I'm sorry."

The teacher's lips pressed together for a moment, but then she moved on down the aisle. Lua ducked his head back to his book, trying to remember what he as supposed to be doing. What was the assignment they were working on again? His head was spinning a little. He blinked a few times—was it because he had just woken up from falling asleep? He didn't feel groggy, though. He felt straight up dizzy.

He tried to swallow and found that his throat was dry, his tongue thick in his mouth. Ugh, what was wrong with him? Every time he blinked, brightly colored shapes flared over his vision. It was like he was playing the puzzle parts of that game again, even though he couldn't...quite remember how they went.

It had been kind of like Tetris, right? Or no, it was like those games where you had to match four in a row. Or something? Ugh, it was hard to remember exactly what had happened and yet it was spinning over his eyelids anyway, it was like that time he had played DDR for three hours straight and the arrows had continued to flash past his vision whenever he closed his eyes.

Maybe he _had_ played for a little too long. It had been almost two and a half hours before Luka had basically had to drag him away from the console. He had been so close, too—right? Or was he forgetting again? The story line of the game was starting to get hard to remember too.

Maybe he should go get a drink of water or something. Or maybe he _did_ need the nurse's office. Come to think of it, his heart was starting to pulse really fast and he was feeling kind of hot and cold in waves. He started to sit up slightly and raise his hand, his mouth opening.

And then the entire room lurched. Everything was _shaking_ , oh, god—earthquake? Was it an earthquake? He felt his shoulder hit the ground and his head hit against the floor and stars exploded in his eyes. He heard someone scream his name—Luka? Was Luka okay? If there was an earthquake and she had an attack she could hurt herself, he had to get up and make sure she was alright—

He tried to lift himself onto his elbows but there was no feeling in them, he couldn't—oh god, he couldn't feel his arms. Where were his arms?

That was when the world went black.

 **. . .**

Blue and red lights swirled over the white hospital walls as Yusei burst through the doors, breathless and winded. For a moment he was so dizzy that he couldn't process the room, but then his eyes found Aki sitting on one of the benches in the waiting area, hugging a crying Luka to her chest.

Yusei jogged over to them, his skin skittering with ghostly chills. Aki's head jerked up at his approach, her hazel eyes wide and frightened.

"I just got the call, what happened?"

Luka didn't seem able to stop crying, and Aki just pulled the girl closer to her, stroking her hair gently.

"Lua had a seizure in the middle of class. He's unconscious—they think he's going to be all right, but he might have gotten a concussion when he fell."

Her voice was clipped and tight, almost mechanical. It was that cold, detached voice that she used when she was stressed and trying to keep it under control.

"A _seizure?_ Why?"

Aki shook her head.

"They don't know. It might be a late appearance of the same problems Luka has."

Yusei's eyes flickered to Luka. Her fingers were curled up into Aki's Duel Academy jacket, tight and white around her knuckles. He stepped forward and dropped to one knee.

"Hey...hey, Luka. Look at me. Look at me, okay?"

Luka swallowed thickly. Her face shifted against Aki's chest so that she was looking at him, her eyes thick and watery with tears.

"It's going to be okay," Yusei said. "Lua's going to be fine."

"What if it isn't?" Luka whispered. "What if he's asleep for a month like I was? What if he's asleep forever?"

Yusei put his hand on top of hers, drawing it towards him and cupping it between his hands.

"We won't let that happen," he said. "He'll be okay. I know he will. Just try to breathe."

Luka gulped a few breaths, much faster and deeper than he thought would be helpful, but at least she was trying.

"Okay," Yusei said soothingly, rubbing her palm in a slow motion. Martha used to do that when they were kids and they hurt themselves in the junkyard, trying to calm them down. "Did anything happen with Lua earlier today? We should probably tell the doctors if there was anything out of the ordinary that could have triggered this."

Luka sniffled, ducking her head down as she thought.

"Um," she started, tentative, nervous, her voice shaking a little. "He...he woke up...early this morning. He never does that. And he was...weird."

"Weird?" Yusei prompted.

"He...he had this weird look in his eyes. And he didn't respond right away when I talked to him. He was...mumbling to himself. I don't think he was completely awake."

Her eyes cast down for a moment.

"And his hands were...they were moving around like he was still playing that game..."

Yusei's lips parted. The game? She meant—of course she meant _Callisto_. His mind cast back to the moment the screen had gone black, and the way that Lua had seemed to think that there was something happening there anyway.

"Game?" Aki said, her eyes narrowing. "What game?"

"T...The arcade game that Yusei was fixing," Luka said.

Aki's eyes lifted to Yusei, her brow furrowed and head tilted in a silent question. Yusei's mouth opened, but words wouldn't come to his lips. How was he supposed to answer? What was he supposed to say?

This couldn't...be because of the game, could it?

"Luka, did the screen ever go black again while Lua was playing yesterday?" he said.

Luka sniffled again.

"A...a few times, when I happened to look up."

"And he was still playing as though he could see what was happening?"

"Y-yeah...I thought maybe I just couldn't see from my angle? The screen is kind of weird from where I was sitting..."

"What game?" Aki said again, even though her question had already kind of been answered. "Yusei, what are we talking about?"

Yusei stood up, his pulse suddenly racing tangibly in his neck. Aki looked up at him, her eyes wide and her face pale.

"I think we need to check something," Yusei said.

 **. . .**

The screen blipped. The sound echoed across the stark white walls and slick metal surfaces, bouncing over the room to the two men on the other side of the room.

"Hm? What was that?"

"Dunno. It's not important—get back to work."

"No, no, no, wait, look at this—has this screen ever turned itself on before?"

The white-coated man waved at his partner as he walked towards the computer.

"Goddam—get back over here, we're in the middle of—"

"It can _wait_ , just look at...oh my god."

" _What?_ "

The man leaned over the table, barely noticing that he was staining the surface with his bloody latex gloves. His eyes widened at the screen readout.

 _Callisto Project Area 1342 online. Scanned: 2. Prospective Subjects Defined: 1._

The man looked up from the screen back at his partner.

"The Callisto Project has just been reactivated."

 **. . .**

 _Where...am...I?_

 _I can't...see...what is all this? Dust...? Ugh...it smells like...sulfur...cough...cough..._

 _What—what was that? Something screaming? I can't—oh my god—Luka—Yusei—s-someone—_

 _I—_

 _RUN._


	3. Alien Syndrome

Yusei took the steps three at a time. Crow's head jerked up from the couch and he sprung to his feet, mouth opening in a question, but Yusei just shook his head as he half ran over to the arcade machine shoved into the corner of the room.

"Where have you been?" Jack said looking up from the kitchen table. "You didn't answer your phone..."

His voice trailed off when his eyes lifted up to Aki and Luka, who were following much more slowly as Luka clung to Aki's shirt. Yusei saw Jack's eyes narrow briefly, and knew that he was noting the fact that Lua was not there. Right, Yusei hadn't gotten a chance to tell them before he had bolted off at the call. He'd tell them in a second he just had to—confirm.

He heard Aki's and Crow's voices interchanging as he shoved the machine back around, fumbling with the cords to get it turned back on.

"Seizure—Lua had a _seizure?_ " Crow's voice broke out over Yusei's concentration.

"What does the game have to do with it?" Jack's voice said. "Yusei, seriously, what the fuck are you doing?"

Yusei pulled himself back around the machine and fumbled for the switch. As the screen came back on, he turned his attention back to the others. His mouth started to open in order to explain what Luka had said about how Lua had been reacting this morning, about thinking something might be wrong with this game, but something Aki's face made him pause.

Her face looked white all of a sudden, eyes fixed on the machine. He could see her hands shaking ever so slightly as they slid off of Luka's shoulders. Her eyes were...distant, somehow. As though she had just seen a face in a crowd that looked familiar but she couldn't quite place.

"Aki?" he said. "Are you okay?"

Aki blinked, snapping out of it.

"Oh, I...I think so," she said. "Sorry, I don't know...what just came over me."

She frowned, walking towards the arcade game. She leaned over it, looking up and down its sides, running her fingers over the top.

"This...this is the game that Lua was playing? The one that he was acting strangely about?" she said.

"Yeah, that's it," Luka said, swallowing thickly.

"What the fuck does that fossil have to do with Lua's seizure?" Jack said, his voice actually shaking a little bit. "Fuck—Yusei, how bad _was_ it, do we need to go to the hospital?"

"Aki, you okay? You look...sick," Crow said.

Aki didn't answer for a moment, biting the tip of her tongue as she slid her fingers over the buttons, eyes flickering up to the screen. She _did_ look sick, Yusei realized. Her face was so pale, and her knuckles were white. She looked like she was going to throw up, the way that her shoulders hunched over the console.

"Aki?" he said.

He started to reach for her shoulder, but noted a very subtle tensing of her muscles, and let his hand drop. She didn't want to be touched right now, but she wasn't going to say it out loud—she still did that, even several months after meeting her. Never told him when she needed space, he had to learn to read it. He understood—she didn't feel safe, yet, telling people where her boundaries were, for fear that they would become angry with her.

But this wasn't just that. He had spent enough time around Aki in the past few months to understand that this wasn't just her being nervous. Something...something was _deeply_ wrong. Was it the game? She hadn't even started playing it.

"I'm okay," she said. "I just...my head hurts. It must be the stress."

 _Lying_ , Yusei thought. _She's lying. Her voice is too light._

"Aki," he said, softly. "It's okay."

The room grew quiet for a moment. Aki's shoulders crumpled inwards slightly.

"It makes me feel sick," she said. "This thing—I've never seen it before, but it...I..."

She shook her head, putting a hand over her mouth as though she were going to throw up. Then, all at once, she dug into her pocket and pulled out a coin. Yusei stepped forward, but she was already feeding it into the slot and then standing up straight, putting her hands on the controls.

"Aki—"

"I'm just—testing," she said. "To see if this is what hurt Lua."

"Aki, no," Yusei said, stepping forward again, almost putting his hand on her shoulder. "If this is what did it, you could get hurt too."

"You were planning on testing it yourself, weren't you?" Aki said. She wouldn't look at him, wouldn't meet his eyes. "Someone has to. I'm just making it me."

"Aki, I can't let you—"

Aki's eyes lifted to his, then, and his words died in his throat. Her face was still so pale. But her eyes, her eyes had a flame behind them—small, but...fighting. His heart jumped. He wasn't sure if it was from that fighting spirit he saw, small but fierce, or if it was because he was...afraid.

"Let me do this," she said, and he heard the pleading behind this. "Please. There's something...something I have to figure out."

He met her eyes for a long moment. Then he found his hand dropping on top of hers, where it rested on the joystick.

"If you start to feel sick, stop immediately," he said. "Okay? Don't push yourself. We might be overthinking this."

She nodded. Yusei squeezed her hand lightly, then he stepped back. Aki's eyes moved to the screen, her pupils dilating in their hazel pools. Her fingers curled around the joystick as she took her position, and the intro screen with the little pixel man started.

"What the fuck are we doing playing with this thing?" Jack said. "Lua's in the hospital and you're playing a video game?"

"Lua was acting like he was still playing it this morning," Luka said. "A-and...there was something strange about it..."

"So you think the _game_ caused his seizure?" Jack said.

"Well, I mean, they have epilepsy warnings on video games yeah?" Crow said. "Could be it..."

"The day after he was playing?" Jack said. "I don't believe this. I'll go to the hospital my fucking self."

Jack turned on his heel and started for the stairs, his fists at his sides. But Luka grabbed the end of his coat and tugged him back.

"Jack—please," she whispered. "I—I was the one that brought it up. I need to know...I need to know if this is what happened. V-Visiting hours are over anyway. They won't let you in."

Jack turned over his shoulder, mouth open as though to argue. But something in Luka's terrified face seemed to make him pause. His mouth closed as he looked at her for a while.

Then he sighed.

"Fine," he said. "I'll stay right here."

Immediately, Luka glued herself to Jack's chest. Jack jumped at first, but then his hands automatically dropped down over her shoulders, rubbing them gently.

Yusei returned his attention to Aki. His heart was in his throat, pumping so loud that it was making him feel like he was choking.

 _It's just a game_ , he thought. _Right? It's just a game. Aki isn't in any danger. It was just a coincidence._

Aki moved her character through the side scroller, her eyes flicking up and down towards the appearing enemies. Was it just Yusei's imagination, or were there more enemies this time than when Lua and Rally had been playing? And he definitely didn't remember that little squid with thorny tentacles showing up in the first level.

But Aki played so effortlessly that it was as though she had played before. Her fingers buzzed over the buttons, slipping on and off the joystick so fast it seemed inhuman. Her gaze trained on the screen with such intensity that, for a brief, worrying moment, Yusei thought he saw her Witch persona staring out of her eyes.

"Aki, have you played this before?" Crow said. "Goddamn—you haven't even taken a single hit."

Aki didn't respond. The screen flickered as Aki hit the same red button that Rally had hit, the one that had made the screen go black. But this time, the black only lasted for a second, a second that made Aki's fingers go haywire. The second the screen came back on, it was somewhere else entirely—was this the first level? Was this any of the levels that Yusei had seen before?

Her character was still standing on top of a red button, but it looked like it was in the middle of a jungle, vines hanging down and swinging in soft pixelated swoops. But Aki didn't even flinch—she didn't even seem to flicker out of her concentration, moving onward as though this were completely normal.

"Aki?" he said. "Hey. Aki."

The screen did the flicker again, and this time, Yusei thought he saw the afterimage of something flash over the screen. Was he imagining things? No, there it was again, in the corner this time.

Aki didn't move, didn't even respond to Yusei.

"Aki," he said again. "Aki, are you okay?"

Something was wrong—her breaths were so shallow and quiet that for a second he thought she wasn't breathing at all. Crow moved forward at the same time as Yusei, but Yusei was closer.

"Aki, I think—you need to stop," Yusei said. "Aki!"

He put his hand on her shoulder—was she really that concentrated on the game?

A blur of motion caught him and he tried to stumble back—and the next thing Yusei knew he was on the floor, his head spinning and lights popping in front of his eyes. He heard Luka's voice crying out, heard Jack shouting, heard a grunt and yell from Crow but he couldn't focus on it, couldn't remember—what the fuck had just—

He tried to lift his head and his stomach turned, his head pulsing. God what had hit him?

His vision blurred for a moment. His ears felt thick with cotton and he couldn't hear what anyone was saying—oh god, wait, what was—

His vision cleared and he felt his stomach drop out.

Crow's arms were latched around Aki's, holding her back from behind. Yusei could see the thorny vines twisted around her arms, as though they had grown out from under her sleeves like extra tentacles, whipping around, trying to get at Crow as though they were alive. Aki's mouth was open wide in a silent scream, her eyes wild as she kicked and flailed in Crow's grip. Crow yelped as a vine hit him in the head and he lost his grip on Aki. Luka was crying as Jack shoved her forcefully behind the couch, out of the way of the wild swing of the vines.

"Izayoi, goddammit you almost killed Yusei!" Jack was screaming. "What the actual fuck!"

What? Aki had—Aki had attacked him. She had used her psychic powers on him. That was what had happened—ugh, fuck— Yusei's head spun as he felt something warm on his head and realized that he was bleeding, the thorn must have hit him across the head.

"A-Aki," he managed to get out through a thick throat. " _Aki._ "

Aki's body went entirely stiff. The vines froze. For a second, she only stood there, staring straight ahead, eyes wide as though she had just seen the most horrifying thing in her life.

And then...slowly...the vines receded, disappearing under her sleeves. Some color returned to her cheeks, and a tremble started to run through her body.

Aki blinked. For a second, her knees looked like they were going to buckle, like she was going to collapse.

Then her eyes fell on Yusei lying on the floor. Her face went white again.

"Oh—oh my god," she mumbled. "I just—I just—"

Both her hands pressed over her mouth, eyes wide and terrified.

"Aki," Yusei said again, trying to sit up. He pressed his hand to the side of his head, hoping he'd hide the blood from her. It wasn't as bad as he had thought, just a scratch. "Aki, it's okay. I'm okay."

Aki shook her head wildly.

"Oh my god, I hurt you," she said. "I—oh god."

Yusei tried to reach towards her—it wasn't her fault, something had gone wrong, whatever that had been it wasn't Aki—

But Aki ducked away from his grip, from Crow's, from Jack's wild swing. She bolted for the stairs, taking them two at a time.

"Aki!"

"Izayoi!"

It was too late—she had already flung door open and disappeared into the night. Yusei's head spun as he reached towards empty air. He could feel the warm blood underneath his palm—he could still see the afterimage of Aki's horrified face.

"Aki," he whispered, his voice empty in the silence.

. . .

This was a bustle of activity like they hadn't had in _months_. You could hardly move for the people in their coats and suits running up and down the halls with piles of paper and computer readouts and clipboards.

"I want a list of every single person admitted to a hospital in the last two days.

"Yes, sir, we're already on it."

He strode with purpose, his fingers clenched around a paper coffee cup that had gone cold hours ago. His assistant hurried to keep up, his shoes squeaking on the floor.

"Everything else goes on hold, do you understand me? We are on total lock down until whatever remains of the Callisto Project has been recovered—we have lost too much in these last few months, I won't have us jeopardized again."

"Yes, sir," the assistant parroted.

"Sir!"

A woman's voice cut above the commotion, and he stopped cold, almost making his assistant run into him. The woman ran down the hall, waving a paper over the heads of everyone else.

"Sir," she said breathlessly as she came to a stop in front of them. "I—"

"This had better be _important_ ," he cautioned, a dark tone in his voice indicating what might go wrong if it wasn't.

"It is sir, it is," she said, gasping for breath between syllables. "The diagnostics on the statistics from the Callisto Project just came back, and we think we've cross-referenced back to the subject it located."

She handed the file over, and the man snapped it between two fingers, glaring down at it with his lips curled.

Slowly, his angry expression faded, replaced with an expression of surprise.

And that was quickly replaced with a slow grin.

"Well, well, well," he said. "It looks like we've already hit gold, so to speak."

He handed the file back to the woman.

"Send out a team, bring him in. If these readings are correct his soul is already in the Outlands, and we should be able to do the necessary tests."

"Yes, sir!"

She ran off, leaving him alone with his cold coffee and his fidgeting assistant. He stared off down the hall, at the bustle of activity that was—still—a far smaller to-do than he used to enjoy before everything had gone downhill.

"This could be what we need," he muttered. "This could be what we _need_."

He looked down at his palm, at the scars that had burned there from a long ago injury. He curled up his hand in a fist around it.

"We _will_ rise again," he said. "The Arcadia Movement will not be destroyed."


	4. Tetris

Go. She had to go. Go where? No. Don't think. Just go. One step two steps three steps stumble catch one step two steps three steps—

Head spinning. Don't think about it. Images fluttering behind eyelids. Don't think about those either. She wasn't to think. The pieces weren't hers. Someone would tell her what to do with them. Who? She had to find them. Someone who would tell her.

Her fingers clenched, her throat went dry. What was she doing? No, wait, where...where was she going? Where were her feet taking her?

 _Don't think. Let me think for you_.

No—something was wrong about that, something was very very wrong—

For a moment, his eyes flashed over her mind—deep, blue, worried, lips parted in concern, hand outstretched—

It wiped away. No. She wasn't—wasn't allowed to think about that. _She wanted to think about that. No no no no she_ had _to think about it, don't let it—don't let it happen again—_

Think! She had to think.

Don't think! She wasn't allowed to think. Thinking was dangerous, thinking would get her hurt again, thinking would—

Names. She had to find their names again. Why couldn't she think of their names? She had to remember, had to get the words to break through before she got there—got where? L...one of them started with an L, that was the one that she was most worried about because something had happened, something had happened to him and that was—

"Oh, goodness...fancy seeing you here, Izayoi-san! I never thought I'd be so lucky to see you wandering back through my doors again. I suppose this unexpected turn of events has some silver lining, hm?"

Wrong—bad—very very very very wrong and bad, no she had to think had to remember before he—before he took it away from her—before he took _them_ away from her—

"Sh...sh...it's all right. You'll hurt yourself like that...just relax...just relax..."

A light flashed into her eyes and she screamed.

"Welcome home, Izayoi-san."

She stopped thinking.

. . .

Yusei didn't even have to look up to know that Crow hadn't found anything—he could hear it in the way that his boots dragged down the stairs. Yusei himself was just pulling his helmet off, his hair sticky against his forehead from the sweat.

"Nothing," Crow called, his voice sounding hollow, defeated. "Not a sign of her anywhere."

Yusei couldn't look up at him. He just flung his helmet down on his handlebars.

Aki hadn't gone home last night. Her parents had called them this morning, asking them if she had stayed over at their place like she sometimes did and forgotten to call. Yusei leaned against his bike, head down. He wanted to start slamming his forehead against the bike, maybe jostle some sense back into himself.

"I should have gone after her," he said. "I should have gone after her right away."

"Yusei, no," Crow said.

Yusei heard his boots scrape over the concrete as he came closer, putting a hand on Yusei's shoulder. Yusei wanted to shrug it off, but he resisted. Crow was just as on edge as he was, and the touch was probably as much for himself as it was for Yusei.

"You were hurt, you couldn't have gone anywhere," he said. "Don't give up yet, Jack's still not back yet. Maybe he found something."

Yusei opened his mouth, but he really wasn't sure what he was going to say in response when he heard the distant hum of Wheel of Fortune. It was a distinctive sound; he'd recognize the vibration anywhere. Sure enough, a few moments later, Jack squealed to a stop just outside the garage, pulling his helmet off. Yusei knew that he, too, had been unsuccessful when he simply threw the helmet into the garage before dragging Wheel of Fortune inside.

"Nothing for you either?" Crow said, looking pained.

Jack just gave him a look that said 'what do you think?' He parked Wheel of Fortune and stalked back to pick up his helmet.

"She'll turn up," Crow said. "Seriously, guys...she will, she'll turn up."

"What did it do to her?" Yusei found himself saying. "What did that—what did that game do to her?"

He realized that his hands were trembling and curled them tighter into the seat of his bike to try and still them. He felt _sick_. His stomach kept twisting over itself, a replay of Aki's horrified eyes flashing over the backs of his eyelids every time he closed them.

 _It wasn't your fault_ , he wanted to say. _Please, Aki...it wasn't your fault._

Aki would never hurt him, not on purpose. He knew that...he knew how scared she was of hurting someone again. If he had just...maybe made sure he was a little farther back...given her more space...

"Yusei," Crow said, as though he could sense Yusei blaming himself.

"I'm going to pull it apart," Yusei said, trying not to acknowledge Crow. "See what I can find inside it. Maybe there's something hidden in those wires, I didn't look very hard—"

"I don't believe that the fucking game had anything to do with it," Jack said. "It's just a _game,_ Yusei, we're blowing out of fucking proportion."

Yusei's eyes lifted up to Jack, barely able to understand what he was hearing. Jack wasn't looking at him, so Yusei couldn't be sure what expression he was making. What was Jack _saying_? Was he just implying that Aki had just decided to attack them on a whim? He should know better than that!

"That game did something to Aki," Yusei said. "You _saw_ it happen."

"All I saw was that something made Aki panic," Jack said. "Hell, Yusei, are you trying to say that the game is some kind of mind-fucker?"

"That's exactly what I'm saying," Yusei said. "It didn't just make her panic—you saw how focused she was on it, even though she had never seen the game before. Something was wrong before she lost it. And what about Lua?"

"That happened the day after," Jack said, his face screwing up stubbornly. "And we already know his family has epilepsy."

"Guys, calm down," Crow said, actually putting himself in between them and raising his hands. "We're all a little jumpy. This isn't the time to argue."

"This isn't the time for Yusei to be fucking around with his machines, either," Jack said. "We don't have time for you to tear it apart looking for answers that aren't there! We should be focusing on looking for her before she hurts herself!"

"We've _been_ looking!" Yusei said. "You and I both know that if Aki doesn't want to be found, she won't be! I'm just trying to find clues where I can about what happened to her!"

"Guys, I've already called Ushio and he's on his way over, and Security's already looking for her!" Crow said, trying to raise his voice over the pair of them. "We've done what we can! Aki can take care of herself—"

Jack slammed his fist against Yusei's work bench, making the scattered tools jump a little.

"What if she can't?" he said. "What if she's out there, by herself, still panicking? We have to find her—we don't have time to wait for fucking Security to figure out how to get their heads out of their asses for two minutes! I can't believe you of all people are _trusting_ them with Aki's safety!"

"We don't have any leads!" Yusei said, his voice rising in spite of himself. He rounded his bike, stalking towards Jack, feeling his fists rolling up. Jack straightened up and his shoulders tensed. "That's what we need—we need a _lead_! Maybe the machine can tell us something!"

"I'll show you what that fucking machine can tell us," Jack said. "Absolutely _nothing_!"

He shoved Yusei out of the way so hard that Yusei actually crumpled. Crow had moved forward in response to Yusei and Jack's confrontation, and he swore as he jumped to catch Yusei by the shoulders. By the time Yusei had regained his balance, Jack had already stormed halfway across the room towards the machine.

Yusei swore, leaping away from Crow and bolting towards Jack. He heard Crow scrabbling behind him, but Crow had always been the faster one and overtook him in a matter of seconds.

Jack was already kicking the machine into life—fuck, Yusei had thought he was just going to start breaking it, but he was turning it on? The image of Lua in his hospital bed and the image of Aki's glassy eyes while her powers went haywire flashed over his mind and he felt bile rise in his throat.

"I'll show you both that there's nothing wrong with this stupid game!"

"You son of a bitch, now is not the fucking time—"

Crow reached Jack and grabbed him under the shoulders, trying to haul him back from the machine. Jack swore as he elbowed backwards, catching Crow in the jaw and flinging him back. Panic surging through his chest, Yusei tried to grab Jack by the elbow, but Jack's hand caught him against the chest and shoved him back.

Dizziness washed over his head as he remembered his wound from last night, and he couldn't move from the floor for a moment. Through the haze he could hear Crow and Jack scrabbling with each other as the sounds of the game's background music picked up in eerie 8-bit notes. It took him precious seconds to get his composure back and manage to push back on his hands.

Jack was trying to move the joystick, but Crow kept fighting for it, the pair of them like children fighting over a toy as they both tried to shove each other out of the way, hands pressed against each other's faces as they fought for control of the joystick. Crow's hand fell on top of a button and the character jumped up, firing a few random attacks. It moved back and forth as the two men fought over the joystick, looking almost frantic. Yusei felt bile rising up in his throat from the rapid movement of the character over the screen, and something was happening, something was flickering across the screen—interference? It was—

And then Jack just—

Crumpled.

Crow swore, one hand reaching for Jack as the man just seemed to give out, the other still on the joystick—his eyes flickered for just the briefest of seconds towards the screen and he froze in mid motion.

Yusei managed to pull himself forward, dragging himself on his hands and knees towards the. He pulled Jack away from where he was crumpled against the machine, and the man's head lolled back in his arms.

"Jack? _Jack!_ "

He—he was still breathing, but he wasn't—he wasn't responding. His eyes were just staring, sightless and glassy and oh god what had happened.

"Jack! Jack, this isn't funny! _Jack!"_

He looked up desperately to Crow as his heart hammered in his ears, mouth opening to tell Crow to call an ambulance—

Crow was staring at the screen, his hand still on the joystick. His mouth hung open as though there was something horrifying on the screen—Yusei didn't see anything different, what was—

"Crow," he rasped. " _Crow!_ "

He was bleeding again, hitting the ground had reopened the wound on his head and he could feel the blood warm and sticky in his hair.

"Crow!" Yusei said again, trying to lift himself up. But he was still trapped underneath Jack and his head spun when he tried to move and he felt like he was going to throw up. Oh, god, what had happened, what was happening, neither of them were responding—

And then Crow started to _scream_.

The sound ripped out of his throat as though he were being _tortured_ , his face bloodless and his hand gripping the joystick so tightly that his knuckles went white.

"Crow!" Yusei screamed. " _Crow!"_

He couldn't do anything, he couldn't get up—he tried to yank on Crow's other arm but it was like the other man was stuck fast, and he wouldn't stop _screaming._

Panic hazed over Yusei's already dizzy mind. He scrabbled for a moment at the side of the arcade machine—he had to turn it off, he had to get off, had to break whatever hold was over Crow and Jack, oh _god—_

He couldn't get up, couldn't reach the button. Then his eyes fell on the power strip, on the long thick cord just within reach. With a cry, he gripped it in both hands and yanked. It took every bit of strength he had from his awkward position, but the plug popped free of the outlet and the game's screen blipped out.

But Jack didn't move, and Crow—Crow didn't even stop screaming. He crumpled too, releasing the joystick and clutching his head between his hands. His eyes were bulging—he was going to choke if he didn't stop to take a breath soon! Fuck, fuck, fuck, oh god—

"Fucking hell, what the fuck is—"

Yusei's head whipped around at the sound, the blessed, most beautiful thing he had ever heard. Ushio barreled into sight, his eyes wide under his thick brows, tanned face going pale as he took in the situation.

"Help," was all Yusei managed to whisper.


	5. Radar Scope

Yusei felt dead inside as he watched Crow and Jack disappear on gurneys, vanishing into the recesses of the hospital. He couldn't see anything except the afterimage of the pair of them.

"Hey, _Yusei_ ," Ushio said, in a tone that made Yusei think he had probably said his name more than once. His hand fell on Yusei's shoulder, squeezing just a little too tightly. "Hey, you're bleeding too; you should probably get that looked at."

"It's just a scratch," Yusei said.

He brushed some of his hair over the cut, hoping that would hide the blood from any worried nurses that might try to drag him off to get checked up. The last thing he wanted right now was someone fussing over him while he was worried about Jack and Crow and Lua.

However, it didn't seem like anyone was paying all that much attention...in fact, now that some of Yusei's consciousness of his surroundings was vaguely coming back, he noticed that the waiting room was...way busier than normal. And there were way more officers in Security uniforms hanging around, talking quickly to each other before moving away in quick bursts.

"Did something happen?" Yusei said.

His own words felt hollow even to him, and part of him couldn't be brought to care.

"I'm not sure," Ushio said, frowning. His thick brows knit together over his eyes as his gaze flicked around. "That's a lot of squads...I must have missed something just before I ran out to meet you guys."

He patted Yusei's shoulder once more, as though to say he would be right back, and then strode off towards a group of officers, his voice catching their attention. Yusei could hardly be bothered to pay attention. All he wanted to do was collapse. His knees were shaking, and he thought that he should probably sit down before he fell over. But something kept him rooted to the spot, kept his eyes fixed on the hallway where Jack and Crow had disappeared.

Lua. Aki. Jack. Crow. Four of his friends...knocked out just like that. Three of them Signers to boot. What...what had happened? He couldn't deny that the game was behind it anymore. He should probably go back. He needed to go back to the garage and start taking it apart, start figuring out what the hell was wrong with it. Figure out what devil had spawned the horrible thing.

And then a thought niggled at his brain.

 _Rally was the first one to play the game—is he okay?_

The thought made his hand drop to his pocket and fumble quickly for his phone. He dragged it free, almost dropping it once before he managed to get it flipped open. His hands were shaking so badly that he had to type the number in twice before he got it. Every ring was agony.

 _Pick up, pick up, pick up..._

" _Yusei?"_ Nerve's voice picked up the call. _"_ _Hey, there, what's up?"_

"Rally," was all Yusei could rasp for a second—he coughed, trying to get himself composed enough to talk. He pressed both hands to the phone. "Is Rally there? Is he okay?"

" _Whoa, whoa,"_ Nerve said, his voice changing from cheer to concern. _"_ _Is everything all right, Yusei? Rally's fine, he's right here, doin' his homework—or rather, he'd_ better _be doin' it."_

" _I'm doing it, I'm doing it!"_ Rally's voice floated from a distance.

Yusei felt a weight roll out of him and he could breathe. Rally was fine. Rally was okay.

But...but he had played the game too. Was it just taking a while? No...somehow Yusei didn't think so. Rally hadn't seen anything when the screen went black...but as soon as Lua had touched the joystick, he seemed to be able to see something.

Somehow, the game had affected Lua, Crow, Jack, and Aki...but not Rally. Why? What was the connection? Crow, Jack, and Aki were all Signers. But Lua wasn't, so that couldn't be it. Was it because he was related to a Signer? But the game couldn't have been made just to ensnare the Signers, that was too specific, and would be too coincidental that Yusei was the one to bring it home. That didn't make any sense either.

But then what? What was...

" _Yusei? Is everything all right? Hey, are you still there?"_

"S-Sorry," Yusei said. "I—"

And then his eyes lifted back to the hallway, and he saw, to his surprise, Luka and Carly. Luka was sobbing, clinging to Carly's hand as she seemed to awkwardly pat her head, looking pale and frightened herself. Her face turned towards Yusei, and her face changed, though it was hard to see her eyes behind her thick glasses from here.

"I'm going to have to call you back," Yusei said. "I'm sorry, I'll explain later."

Yusei hung up before Nerve could say anything else, tucking the phone back into his inside pocket as he stumbled into a walk. Carly hurried over to Yusei with Luka in tow, her face white. Now that he was closer, he could see how wide and frightened her eyes were behind her glasses.

"Yusei, what's going on?" Carly said. "I just saw Jack and Crow—"

"What are you both doing here?" Yusei said at the same time. They both stopped, hesitating, uncertain of who should speak first.

"Sorry, I'll go first," Carly said, her voice trembling. She fumbled with her glasses with her free hand for a moment, the other still gripped by Luka. "L-Lua's gone missing."

The bottom dropped out of Yusei's stomach. He couldn't speak; it was like all the air was gone from his lungs.

"I-I caught over the police scanner that something had happened at the hospital, and came to check it out," Carly continued, her voice trembling. "And I ran into Luka-chan, who was coming to visit Lua, only..."

"T-they took him away," Luka sobbed.

She released Carly's hand and threw herself against Yusei. Yusei automatically put his hands around her shoulders, hugging her tightly.

"Who did?" Yusei said. "Who took Lua?"

"I-I don't know, but he's gone, he's not in his room, someone broke into the hospital and the window is open and they took him, Yusei, they took Lua away, where is he, where is he, where is he—"

Yusei dropped to his knees so that he could hold her better, stroking his hand through her hair more through automatic instinct than anything else. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't feel.

Jack and Crow—both unconscious. Aki—missing. And now...Lua? Kidnapped?

Ushio jogged back over to them just then, his scar twisted with his worried grimace. His eyes glanced between Carly, Yusei, and Luka.

"I guess you already heard, then," he said.

Yusei's hands tightened around Luka and she pressed her face harder into his shoulder, still sobbing.

"What did that game do to him?" she sobbed. "What did it do to everyone?"

"I don't know," Yusei mumbled. "I...I don't know."

This was his fault. This was all his fault. If he hadn't brought it home...if maybe he had tested it himself first instead of letting the kids play with it—

"Game?" Carly said uncertainly. "What...game?"

Yusei wasn't sure he could talk, but Ushio seemed to pick up.

"You mean that arcade machine I found you all collapsed around?" he said, his voice incredulous. "You're trying to say _that's_ what all this craziness is about?"

Yusei still couldn't respond, his voice was too choked up. He didn't know what he could say. And then he caught the flicker of across Carly's eyes, the way her lips parted.

"Wait," she said, and he could almost see the gears turning behind her eyes. "Arcade game...that's..."

She sucked in a breath.

"Yusei," she said, her eyes suddenly wide and piercing. "I—I could be way off but—you wouldn't happen to have _Callisto_ in your garage right now?"

Yusei's eyes jerked up, and Luka's head whipped around up towards Carly.

She glanced at both of them, and then began to slide her bum bag back and forth around her waist.

"I guess I guessed right," she said, looking pale and frightened.

. . .

Luka refused to come back to the garage with them. She insisted it was because she had to make sure that Crow and Jack didn't disappear like Lua, that she had to protect them. Yusei knew that part of the reason was because the game terrified her. She didn't want to be around it anymore.

He couldn't blame her.

Ushio stayed behind at the hospital with Luka and the others, while Carly accompanied Yusei back to the garage. She tried to explain things on the motorcycle ride there, despite her words continually almost getting pulled away by the wind.

" _Callisto_ was a huge conspiracy theory about five years ago," she shouted over the wind. "I was just starting to get interested in journalism, and I found it on a forum!"

"What was it?" Yusei shouted back.

"I can't tell you how much is true or not," Carly said, frowning. Her hair streamed behind her in the wind as Yusei glanced over his shoulder to where she was clinging for dear life. She looked sick, and he wondered if he was driving too fast—she wasn't wearing a helmet, after all; he didn't have an extra one on him right now. "But the rumors went that it just showed up one day in a handful of arcades, for only a few weeks, and then vanished again. It got really popular really quickly, really addictive...surprising considering all the glitches it was supposed to have."

"Glitches?"

He zoomed down the lane and eased off on the speed, bringing them slowly to a stop in front of the garage.

"Yeah, visual glitches like sprites appearing where they shouldn't, enemy AI malfunctioning and killing you off so that certain areas were unreachable, the screen going black every now and then."

Yusei pulled his helmet off, then slid off the bike and extended a hand to Carly to help her dismount. She took it gratefully, looking a little dizzy as she pulled herself to her feet on the solid ground.

"It was so addictive that they said lines were going out the door for a chance to play," she said. "And actual fights would break out over it. Not only that—there were rumors that kids would pass out after playing it."

"This all sounds...very familiar," Yusei said darkly.

Carly's face was flushed as she nodded, following Yusei into the garage while he parked his bike.

"Not a lot of that could be confirmed by the forum, but I did my own digging," she said. "And while I couldn't find much...I did notice that the dates that the machine was supposed to be in arcades corresponded to an uptick in children admitted to the hospital. And..."

She stopped, biting her lip. Yusei looked up from where he was hanging his helmet.

"And?" he prompted.

She swallowed.

"There was a big uptick in children disappearances too," she said. "Anywhere between the ages of eight and eighteen, there were at least thirty cases of children going missing."

Yusei felt his blood run cold.

"It...it could have been coincidence," he said, but even as the words came out of his mouth he knew that he didn't believe it.

Carly looked like she was going to be sick, and he knew all at once that there was something that she wasn't saying yet. Something that was too sickening for her to think about that she didn't want to say it.

"Carly-chan?" he said, quietly, gently.

Carly blinked out of the haze and swallowed thickly.

"Well," she said, her voice sounding thick. "Honestly, I would have forgotten all about it...except..."

She looked down.

"When I infiltrated...Arcadia Movement," she said, slowly, haltingly.

Yusei's breath caught in his throat—first, because of the name, and second, because he knew what had happened there. Carly had... _died_ there. Jack had finally told him just a few weeks ago, finally dragged out of his reticent brain in a moment of drunken emotion. Jack was convinced that Carly didn't remember dying, or being a Dark Signer, and Yusei was inclined to agree, considering the way that her forehead was wrinkling up, as though the memories were hard for her to get to.

"I remember...I found a bunch of files," she said. "One child's face looked familiar to me, but I didn't know why at the time...and on the way here, while I was talking to you, I brought up the case files from after Security broke open the Movement."

She pulled her phone out and flipped it open, turning the screen to Yusei. He didn't recognize the name or the face of the child, but she tapped the screen to a different file, a missing persons file of the same child. Yusei felt ice congealing in his veins.

"They're the same kid," he said.

Carly nodded as she turned the phone back to her, her face tightening with worry.

"It doesn't take long to figure out that every single one of those children in the missing cases during _Callisto's_ brief appearance correspond to files of Arcadia Movement psychics found after Security downloaded all of their data," she said.

Yusei couldn't feel the ground under his feet. He felt sick—dizzy. The _Arcadia Movement._ Just the very words sent a shudder through his spine, made the world spin.

His mind flashed to Aki. How quickly she adapted to the game, as though she had...played it before...

"You think the game is connected to the Arcadia Movement," Yusei said.

Carly nodded.

"I...it makes the most sense," she said, her voice flopping about, as though she weren't sure what kind of tone to have. "The game appears...children go missing...the game disappears. The Arcadia Movement is taken out...all the children's files are found."

Yusei started to nod, and then froze.

"The... _files_ were found," he repeated.

Carly didn't miss the emphasis, and nausea flickered over her face for a moment. She clutched at her bum bag, sliding it back and forth.

"N-not... _all_ of the children were found after the main compound collapsed," she mumbled. "They weren't all...located in the other handful of locations either."

Yusei couldn't breathe. His mouth opened but no sound escaped him. He closed his mouth again, and swallowed thickly.

He didn't want to think about the ideas that were running through his head. He didn't want to think about the panic that was trembling just under his skin.

 _This game was used by the Arcadia Movement,_ he thought. _As what? As a...as a recruitment tool?_

 _Rally didn't react to the game_ , occurred to him next. _Rally was the only one so far that didn't have any reaction. Rally doesn't have any powers. But—but Lua doesn't either, and Jack and Crow aren't psychic duelists, they're just Signers._

His head was spinning. He couldn't think, couldn't breathe. Carly turned around, and her eyes fell on the machine, still unplugged.

"Is...is that it?" she said.

Yusei could only nod. Carly took a step forward.

Images of Crow screaming, Jack crumpling, Lua's limp body on the hospital bed, Aki's panicked eyes—all of them flashed over Yusei's eyes. He didn't realized that he had grabbed Carly's shoulder until he had. Carly's eyes met his over her shoulder. Yusei wondered how much of his panic was showing on his face.

"I won't play it," she said. "I just want to take a closer look. I _promise_."

Yusei almost couldn't let go of her shoulder. He swallowed, feeling his throat tight and dry. His fingers slipped off of Carly's shoulder. She didn't move right away, a brief, reassuring smile flickering over her face. Then she walked across to the machine, leaving Yusei standing alone on the concrete.

He watched from a distance, as though even he were too afraid to get too close to the machine—as though it would suddenly flicker to life and draw him in, force him to want to play. Make him addicted, like the children in the urban legend. Cause him to lose it, like Aki, like Crow, like—

Carly's fingers ran over the machine, her glasses caught the light as she leaned over it, walking around it as she tapped her lips. She leaned behind it to look at the wires, the back still yawning open without a case. She popped back, eyes lifting up to the button on top, but not making any move to touch it. It was unplugged, Yusei reminded himself. It was harmless unless they played it.

Carly frowned as she returned to the front, touching the joystick and running her fingers over the keys without pressing them. Panic spiked in Yusei's chest in spite of himself, and he found himself walking forward until he was standing next to Carly. As though he would need to grab her if she suddenly collapsed, or panicked, or something.

She leaned in towards the buttons, squinting. She muttered something to herself that Yusei couldn't catch, then shifted her glasses to the top of her head so that they weren't in the way. Her hands ran once more over the keys, tapped the screen with one knuckle.

Something in the air changed.

"This is an abomination," Carly said.

That wasn't Carly's voice.

Yusei sucked in a sharp breath as his eyes turned to Carly's face and—

Black—the whites of her eyes had gone black. His heart shot up into his throat as he realized he was looking into the eyes of a Dark Signer. A swear rose to his lips, but Carly was faster—faster than she had any right to be. Her finger shot up and pressed to his lips, silencing him.

"Calm down," she said, her voice unnaturally harsh and stern. "For fuck's sake."

He jerked away from her hand, backing up with his fists slightly raised. Could he make it to his deck in time? Was she here to fight him?

But her Dark Signer eyes flickered to the console again, and her lip curled into a very un-Carly-like face of disgust. Yusei was choking. She hadn't even turned it on, oh, _god_ , the game had turned her back into a Dark Signer?

"W-Who are you?" he managed.

Carly's eyes shifted to him, raising an eyebrow. Her lip curled as though with irritation.

"I'm not going to hurt you," she said, rolling her eyes. "God. The game didn't do shit—well, okay, it's unnatural fucking existence prompted me to peek out, but that's it."

She sniffed as she tapped the keys again. Yusei was recovering from the initial shock, and his hands rolled up into fists at his sides.

"Who _are_ you?" he said again, his voice stronger.

Carly just looked at him for a moment.

"I'm Carly," she said finally. "Or rather, an aspect of her."

"You're a Dark Signer. The hummingbird."

"No," Carly said. "I'm something else entirely—my contact with the hummingbird simply caused this aspect of me to be reawakened."

"You're not making any sense," Yusei said, feeling his voice grate with anger.

"Explaining what I am isn't important right now," Carly snapped. "What _is_ important right now is what I'm about to tell you, because the other part of me doesn't know this, so listen very, _very_ carefully."

Yusei opened his mouth but Carly held up a hand to silence him.

"This is magic," she said, pointing at the machine. "But it's _wrong_ magic—it's a corruption of science and spirit power that should never have existed. It's used to draw out the latent abilities of the player, and also to alter their state of mind."

Yusei opened his mouth again but Carly talked over him.

"You don't have enough time for questions," she said. "This is unstable magic that could have any _number_ of effects—and I think I have an idea of where Lua's soul went."

"W-what?" Yusei said.

"Lua's soul—he's not just unconscious, his soul has been completely knocked out of his body—and if he went where I think he did, then he likely doesn't have much time."

She considered the machine for one more moment.

Then, with a rush of power and rage that Yusei knew Carly didn't have in her, she punched a hole through the screen. Yusei swore as she reached deep inside and began to yank cords to pieces, shredding the wires as she dragged them out of the whole.

"This needs to be destroyed," she said. "And _you_ need to find the Arcadia Movement. They likely have Lua...and probably Aki as well."

"Where am I supposed to look?"

"Do I look like fucking Nostradamus to you? Use that big brain of yours, I know you're a genius or some shit."

Was this...even possibly even a _part_ of Carly? She snarled to herself as she dropped the shredded wires.

"I'm going back to sleep," she said. "Take what I said. Get going. Our friends don't have much time, and I don't yet have the power or stability to give you much help."

"Wait—"

But Carly had already pulled her glasses back down over eyes, and almost immediately, the black bled back to white, and Carly was looking at him, blinking.

"We need to find the Arcadia Movement," she said, as though nothing else had happened. "That's...that's my best guess for looking for more clues..."

"The old compound," Yusei said automatically. "It's cordoned off, but—"

There was no helping it—and whoever the hell that other Carly had been, there was no time for him to be asking questions. At least, that much he and the other Carly agreed on. He wasn't sure he could trust her, the Dark Signer Carly, but...but what else did he have to go on?

He'd...he'd bring this up with Carly later.

His phone exploded in his pocket, and he swore, fumbling until he got it free. That was Ushio's number. Oh, god, had something else happened?

"Ushio, it's me, what's wrong?"

" _Jack's awake,"_ Ushio's voice bellowed over the phone. _"_ _And he says he needs to talk to you right_ now _."_


	6. Fantasy Zone

_Relax...relax..._

She couldn't feel her fingers. But that was okay. Resting sounded good right now. She just wanted to lay here and stare at the light that was shining into her eyes, the screen that flickered every now and then. There were voices at the edge of her consciousness, but she didn't listen. They weren't important. She just wanted to rest. Just wanted to lay here. No point in thinking.

" _...located..."_

" _Bring...in..."_

" _Reprogramming...smoothly..."_

She just felt so heavy. It was so easy to just sink down onto the surface underneath her and not move. So easy to let the screen do all the thinking for her. Yes, this was better. This was safe...everything was okay...she was safe...she was safe here...

Something flickered on the edge of the eyes, but she tried not to pay attention. It was dangerous to pay attention to anything other than the screen. She knew that...she knew that...she had to relax. Had to stay safe.

" _...bring him...careful...jesus man..."_

" _...get...plugged in..."_

Hang on a second, was it just her, or was her brain...getting clearer? She felt hot. Her right arm was _burning_. She gasped, feeling her eyes bulge, her fingers curl up against the table. Hot, hot, hot, she felt so _hot—_

Her head managed to shift in spite of herself, in spite of the allure of the screen. Through the haze of bright light and dizziness, she saw...saw a boy? Small. Very small. His hair was loose, green, scattered over the table where he lay with his eyes closed. She could see the men standing around him, tall with white coats. One of them held...held something. Something small and sharp and—

 _Syringe_ , she thought suddenly. The word was as clear as a bell tolling through her head and she gasped, pain shooting through her all at once.

Where was she? What was she—what had been happening to her brain? What was going on? Her arm burned, burned in the design of a glowing mark—she remembered that mark, she remembered it, it was a connection, it was waking up, trying to tell her that someone else was near, someone that was in trouble—

"I thought this kid was already in our database," someone said, and she found that the words were perfectly clear, her breaths were starting to come more shallow as she realized that she was _not safe_. "Yeah, I saw 'im—didn't Divine already test him?"

The name felt like a punch to the gut and for a moment she couldn't see. She knew that name, oh, _god_ , she knew that name. She found herself desperately wishing she could curl up, hide away, but her wrists and ankles were trapped and she couldn't move. Why did that name hurt? She couldn't—remember.

"Oh please," a sharp voice said, snorting. "Divine's methods for releasing latent power were always so _primitive_. Now I won't hear him spoken of in this room again, is that clear?"

"Yes, sir."

Her eyes managed to peel open again and she let her head fall back towards the boy. She knew him. She knew him, why couldn't she remember—

 _Lua_.

The name cut through her and her air punched through her throat all at once. Lua, that was Lua she remembered his name, he was here, why was he here? And what were they going to—

She saw one man lift his arm up, point the syringe to his arm. Her hands curled up into fists at her sides.

 _No. I have to—_

 _Have to—_

 _PROTECT—_

She wanted to shout, but words wouldn't form, her tongue was too thick and clunky.

She just screamed instead.

All heads flashed towards her and the man dropped the syringe. She heard it shatter on the floor. She threw herself up—but she couldn't move, her wrists and ankles were strapped to the table and all she could do was flail. Her head spun—she couldn't make words, only sounds, her brain wasn't _functioning_. Lua. She had to get to Lua, that was all she could remember and she clung to it. _Lua Lua Lua Lua Lua—_

"Bloody fucking hell!"

"What the fuck?"

"Someone sedate her now!"

She could feel them—her vines, snaking out from under her sleeves. She had to get to Lua. Had to get to him, had to protect him—

Someone screamed and she could taste the blood on the end of her vines as though it were her own tongue. Another swear, and another scream, she couldn't control where the vines were going, she just had to—

"Get him out—get him out of here! Get him _out_! He's sending her into a frenzy!"

Motion—she couldn't understand what it was, if it was them fleeing from her or if it was her vines. Had to get to—had to get to...who? The men were leaving, were dragging a gurney out of the room with something—someone—on it. She couldn't remember. Hadn't it been important? She had to remember.

Her vines slowly, slowly went limp. Her arm was going cold. What had she been...what had she just been...

"Go back to sleep," a voice said harshly. "It's not safe. You'll hurt yourself."

Not safe. She had to be safe. Had to stay safe...not safe for her to think or feel...not safe...

Something pricked her arm and then her vision blipped out again and she was asleep.

. . .

How long had he been here? He couldn't remember.

Lua collapsed back against a crumbling stone wall—or at least, he thought it was a stone wall. It was hard to tell when the world was almost entirely pitch black. He gasped for breath as he pressed into the stone, tears leaving streaks through the dust plastered to his cheeks. Every time he tried to breathe, though, he inhaled clouds of the sulfurous dust that every step of his feet sent up in cloud, and he choked, scrabbling at his throat. He pulled his shirt up over his face, sobbing as he tried to breathe through the fabric, tried to get at least some kind of air in his lungs that didn't smell and taste like death.

 _Is this hell?_ He thought. _Am...am I in hell?_

He couldn't come up with any better explanation for this place. The world was almost entirely dark, and he wasn't sure if he was inside or outside. There was just the tiniest hint of light on the horizon though, which seemed to illuminate a streak of mountains or hills in the distance, which made him think he was in some kind of...really bit desert. There weren't any stars over head, though, and he had been here for hours with no sign of a sun. The ground seemed to be made of charred sand, which by now coated every inch of him. He could sort of see his hand in front of his face if he squinted, but that was it. He could feel the stone wall behind him, but he had no way of knowing if it was attached to anything else. The only reason he had found it was because he had barreled right into it, and frantically felt along it, desperate to find away around.

He had found his way around it, and judging by the way his hands had gotten cut up on the edges, it was all shattered and broken along the top, and he kept tripping over fallen stones, so it was probably broken up. But now...what if there was another one, and he ran into it in the dark? God, if only he could see—

The screaming started again.

It took everything Lua had not to scream too, slapping both hands over his mouth to still the cry. Tears rolled over his fingers as he squeezed his eyes shut, willing it to stop. The sound was high, screeching, and cut right through his bones. It awakened something feral and terrified in him, made him feel like a rabbit about to get devoured by a wolf.

And then he heard it—the footsteps, dragging through the sand. The heavy, shuffling sound of feet dragging across the dusty ground, the screech of something sharp pulling across stone. Oh god it was right behind the wall.

Lua scrambled to his feet and bolted down the wall, one hand against it so that he would have some idea of where he was, and one in front of him in case there was another wall. Sure enough, his hand crashed painfully into the wall in front of him and he gasped. He heard the screech of something sharp pulled against the wall just behind him—it had rounded the wall, oh god, it was right behind him.

Lua attached to the new wall and ran off to the left along it. He crashed into yet another wall and this time he completely collapsed backwards, his head spinning. What was this—a maze? Or was he just—trapped? Had he been driven into a trap?

He looked panicked behind him, trying to decide where the sound was coming from. In the dark, he couldn't see _anything_. He could only hear the creature as it got closer...closer...

Lua pulled himself to his feet and pressed back into the wall, his heart in his throat as the screeching sound suddenly went silent. The footsteps stopped too.

W-was...was it...gone?

Something grabbed his ponytail, something sharp and bony and pointy that scraped against his head and he screamed. He kicked and flailed, he couldn't even see what was grabbing him! He screamed as something sharp started to dig into his side just under his ribs, slowly screwing down through his skin until it reached blood—

His arm connected with something that felt like an elbow and all at once the creature dropped him. Heart choking him, Lua bolted. His hands brushed against something like a wispy fabric as he brushed past the creature, running down along the wall. The wall disappeared from his fingertips at his side and no new one appeared in front of him. He didn't stop to think if there could be another one in the distance, he just ran.

 _Someone help_ , he thought desperately. _Yusei—Jack—Crow—Aki—Luka! Someone, PLEASE!_

His blood was warm at his side and he clutched at it as he ran, trying to keep it from seeping between his fingers. He needed to get away, but where? Was there any escape from this hell? He was all alone and there was no one who could hear him—

He tripped over his own feet and went down with a cry, crashing into the sand.

His heart and pulse were thrumming, and he knew that he needed to stand up. Knew he needed to keep running. But...but for how long? Was he trapped here forever until that thing finally caught him? Tears dribbled out onto the sand in front of him.

"Luka," he mumbled, his throat thick and tight. " _L-Luka._ "

. . .

Luka's head jerked up all at once, her breath catching in her throat. Jack's eyes flashed over to her—he was tense, more tense than even she was while they waited for Yusei and Carly to get back.

"Luka?" he said. "What's wrong?"

Luka's hands crawled up to her head, clutching at her hair.

"Lua," she whispered. "I just heard Lua."


	7. Cosmic Monsters

Yusei screeched to a stop in front of the hospital, not even bothering to park nicely. He left his D-Wheel parked lopsided next to the sidewalk, shoving his helmet under his arm as he ran. Behind him, Carly squeaked as she got her foot caught on the seat while she tried to get her legs both onto the ground, but he didn't think he had the fortitude to wait for her. He shoved through the brightly lit doors of the hospital lobby and made straight for the hallway towards the room he knew Jack would be in.

A nurse shouted at him to hold up, to stop running in the hospital, but the blood was pounding in his ears and he couldn't be bothered to even make a hurried apology. Jack was awake—he was awake, oh, thank god, at least one of them was—

Ushio was standing outside the door, arms folded and fingers drumming across his arm. He looked pale, drawn. It was a nerve-wracking expression to see on his normally tough, scowling face. His expression relaxed ever so slightly as Yusei darted around a nurse pushing a cart and got shouted at before he made his way to Ushio.

"How is he?" Yusei said.

Thankfully, Ushio was the kind to get right to the point.

"He just woke up a handful of minutes before I called you," he said. "He was pretty bad at first—flailing and fighting as though something was trying to kill him. They almost had to put him back under."

Yusei's heart dropped into his stomach but Ushio kept talking.

"He got lucid pretty fast," he said. "Said that he needed to talk to you right away."

He hesitated, one hand over the handle to Jack's room. Yusei's heart threw itself against his rib cage, and he wondered why Ushio wasn't just opening the door right now—he had to get in there and see Jack.

"Yusei—I don't know if he's really all there even now," he said. "Just...just please take it slow. I'm not sure what the hell is going on, but it seems like some more crazy bullshit that seems to follow you kids around."

He frowned, glancing down at Yusei, his bushy eyebrows furrowing between his eyes.

"I'd hate to see you kids getting more banged up than you already have been."

Yusei managed a faint smile—honestly, for part of him, the idea of Ushio actually caring about his well being still felt very surreal. It felt like just yesterday that Yusei had spent every waking moment of his life fearing the flash of a Security uniform around a corner or the faint screech of a siren going off. Even now, the uniform still made him nervous, and he knew that Ushio always noticed the way that Yusei and the others always kind of tensed up at the sight of him, despite everything. But the concern in Ushio's eyes was genuine, and Yusei couldn't help but be grateful to the man for it.

"We're doing our best," he said, knowing just how weak his voice sounded.

Ushio's gaze darkened with further concern, but he didn't say anything more. He just pushed the door open and let Yusei in.

Jack sat straight up and perfectly still on the bed, his eyes flashing with a strange, almost wild clarity as Yusei entered. Luka jumped a little. She sat perched on the very end of a chair beside Jack's bed, her hands clasped between her knees.

"You took too long," Jack said.

"I came as quickly as I could," said Yusei, walking inside and dropping his helmet on the end of Jack's bed. "How—are you all right?"

Jack waved his hand widely as though to say it wasn't important.

"That's not the issue here," Jack said. "Yusei, I saw him. I saw Lua.'

"You...what?"

It took Yusei a second to even process what Jack had said, but Jack was already continuing.

"I don't know what the hell that machine was, Yusei, but I—I could see him. I could see Lua, and he was in danger. His soul is somewhere else. I don't think he was able to see because he kept stumbling around and running into this...broken up labyrinth of stone walls. And..."

Jack's face suddenly drained of color, and his eyes dropped to his lap.

"Something was chasing him, Yusei. I couldn't—I couldn't see what it was, but something was chasing him. That game stole his soul and now he's in trouble."

"You're sure?" Yusei said.

Jack just nodded sharply.

"I-I heard him too," Luka said. "In my head...like when he was calling to me across the dimensions back when I was in my coma. I think...I think Lua might be able to call over dimensions, and I can hear him from wherever he is."

Yusei really didn't know how he was supposed to respond—what was he supposed to do with this information? Lua was in trouble, but...but how was Yusei supposed to help him? There were so many more questions than answers. Why did the machine take Lua's soul away, but not Aki's, Jack's, or Crow's? Why was it affecting them all differently?

"Jack, why didn't it take you there, too?" Yusei said.

Jack shook his head slowly.

"I...I don't know. I think I was...close. But something happened. I managed to hold myself back, and then I caught a glimpse of Lua before I woke up here."

There was something in the tightening of Jack's jaw and the way that his face turned even paler that made Yusei think there was something that Jack wasn't sharing. He tilted his head.

"Jack?" he said softly.

Jack wouldn't meet his eyes.

"Jack, what happened when you started up that game?"

Jack actually looked...scared?

"I don't want to talk about it," he said. "It's not important, anyway. We have to do something about Lua. And Aki, too—we need to find her before something goes wrong."

"I know, I know," Yusei said. "But...but how do we go about..."

The only thing he could think of was searching the old Arcadia compound, but in spite of himself, a shudder ran down his spine imagining delving into that old, ruined building by himself in the middle of the night. And what could be waiting for him in there? Could this even be a trap?

"I'll go check out the old Arcadia Movement," he said. "Maybe there are clues. Maybe I can find a lead on where Aki went, or where the game came from, or something."

"You're not going without me," Jack said, gripping the edges of the blanket as though about to throw it off of him.

"Jack, you need to stay right where you are until the doctors clear you," Ushio growled.

"Make me," Jack hissed.

Yusei started to step in between them, his hands raised and shaking in spite of himself. This was all—too much. Too much at once. He definitely couldn't let Jack come with him, even if the idea of going alone made him feel like throwing up. He had to—no, he had to be tough, like always. He had to hang on.

"I—I'm going to go after Lua," Luka said suddenly, her voice ringing through the room.

Every set of eyes turned to her at once as the room went silent, but despite the paleness of her face, she didn't wither in the slightest.

"How?" Yusei said. "We don't even—"

"I can get there," Luka said, pressing her hand over her heart, her round face suddenly tight with determination. "Remember? I have the power to walk across the worlds. I heard Lua's voice—I'm sure I can reach out to where he is."

"Luka, _no_ ," Jack said. "That—that _thing—_ we can't send you in there."

Jack's voice caught when he mentioned whatever monster was chasing Lua, and even Yusei had to shudder knowing just how frightened the idea had made Jack. If _Jack_ was scared...

"But Lua is there all alone!" Luka said, her voice going high pitched. "I'm a Signer, Jack—and he's my brother!"

"Out of the question," Jack said. "No."

"I'll bring Regulus and Ancient Fairy Dragon," Luka argued, standing up from her chair, hands rolling into fists at her sides. "I'm a Signer _too!_ "

"Luka, please, we have to think about this," Yusei said, holding up his hands. "Luka, we're all scared, we're all strung out, we can't make any rash decisions."

"Oh, rash decisions, like you going to check out the Arcadia Movement all by yourself?" Luka shot back.

"That's—"

"Different? Because you're older, and I'm younger? We're all still just kids, Yusei!"

Fat tears rolled down out of her eyes, leaving silvery trails down her cheeks.

"He's the only family I have left, Yusei," she sobbed. "I have to go and get him. I have to go."

"Luka—"

She sniffled loudly, then dragged the back of her arm harshly over her eyes and nose to wipe them clean.

"And I'm going whether either of you give me permission or not."

Jack leaned forward to make a swipe towards her, to grab her. But Luka had already turned on her heel, and before Yusei or anyone could even breathe, she had simply popped out of existence, leaving only a faint sprinkle of sparkles in the air where she had been, which faded out in a few seconds.

Jack let out the foulest string of obscenities that Yusei had heard in years.

"Fucking hell, Yusei, why didn't you stop her? We have to get her out of there!"

"Jack, neither of us have her powers!" Yusei shouted back, his own nerves snapping. Oh, god, Luka was gone. Luka had gone wherever that godforsaken machine had taken Lua, to wherever that monster that had frightened Jack was, and she was going to be out there with just Lua and the twins were all alone and if they were in trouble, there was nothing that Yusei could do. He didn't have the ability to cross worlds, he wouldn't even know if either of them were coming back until they did—

"I have to get to the Arcadia Movement now," Yusei said, grabbing his helmet and jamming it back on his head.

"I'm coming with you," Jack said. He flung the blanket off of him and stormed across the room to grab his coat.

"Jack—Yusei—both of you, goddamit," Ushio swore.

"Save it!" Jack snapped at him, smacking back Ushio's hand as he stormed past. "Take care of Crow!"

Yusei didn't have the energy to argue with Jack, and knew there was nothing he could do to stop him from coming. Part of him was relieved that he didn't have to go alone. But the rest of him—

The rest of him was occupied with being terrified about what was coming next.

. . .

Luka breathed in too deeply and immediately regretted it, coughing and hacking up half a lung with all the dust that she had inhaled. Ugh, what was this smell? It was like something was burning. And where was it coming from? She couldn't see anything...

She turned in a slow circle, trying to squint at the horizon, but nothing appeared. She waved her hand in front of her face, but it was like it wasn't even there. A faint nervousness crawled down her spine. W-why was it so dark? How was she going to find Lua here?

"Regulus?" she whispered. "Regulus, I need you."

Her voice seemed to get swallowed up by the dust, and disappear before it even finished coming out of her mouth. She waited expectantly for Regulus to appear, for his solid bulk to push against her hands, for his voice to echo into her head.

But nothing happened.

Luka's heart fluttered.

"A-Ancient Fairy Dragon?" she said. "Ancient Fairy, I need you."

She didn't even feel the faintest spark in her chest, or even a hint of the magic that usually let her know that her voice had gone through and her monster friends were coming. It was like...

It was like no one could hear her from here.

Panic gripped Luka's head, and she almost fell over. She wrapped her arms around herself in a tight hug, her knees shaking against each other. No, no, no, what was she supposed to do? She couldn't summon Ancient Fairy, and she couldn't summon Regulus, it was like from here, they couldn't even hear her! In a brief spike of panic, she tried to jump back into the other world, despite the guilt that wracked her.

But she couldn't.

She couldn't go back.

Luka almost screamed. It was like all of her powers had left her all at once—she couldn't summon, she couldn't hear her monsters, she couldn't leave this world. She couldn't find Lua—what had she been thinking? She couldn't—she couldn't—

A horrible scream sounded in the distance, and she actually screamed herself this time, clapping her hands over her ears. The panic that wracked her didn't even feel possible for her to be able to contain, she thought she was going to shake so hard that she would fall apart.

Instinct took over and she fled in the opposite direction of the scream. Her feet tripped and scrabbled over the thick, dusty ground, as though she were running through a fast desert. What if there was something in front of her? Hadn't Jack mentioned something about walls, a labyrinth? What if she ran into something and knocked herself out?

She couldn't fight the primal fear that coursed through her, and she kept running anyway.

A second scream started somewhere in the distance in front of her. She tried to skid to a stop—was there more than one? The dusty ground was slippery, however, and her arms wheeled as she tried to careen to a stop—

She smacked right into something very heavy, very solid, and very _alive_.

A scream ripped out of her throat, so loudly that she didn't hear the other shape scream at first. She couldn't see—she could only feel her panic as she tried to extract herself from the sudden tangle of warm limbs that she was stuck in, her coat clasps getting stuck on another set of clasps—

Oh!

"L-Lua?" she managed. "Lua! Lua, it's me!"

The other shape was still trying to struggle free of her, and she could almost taste his panic, but she managed to fight through her own panic enough to be able to feel through the darkness where she knew his face must be. She grabbed it in both hands, and found it gloriously solid and warm, like a real human face should be.

"Lua! Lua, it's Luka!"

And then that glorious sound choked through the darkness.

"L-Luka?" her brother's voice said. "L-Luka? Is that r-really you?"

"Yes, yes, yes," Luka sobbed. "It's me, it's really me."

His hands fumbled through the dark, and she felt his hands wrap around her pigtails briefly, as though that was the deciding factor. Then his hands fell on top of hers and then he was hugging her and both of them were sobbing into each other's shoulders, feeling the tremble of panic that went down both of their spines.

"I-I'm sorry," Lua sobbed. "I-I'm not brave at a-all."

"It's okay, it's okay," Luka said. "We're together now—they can't beat us, right? Not with our twin combination!"

Lua actually giggled through his tears.

"Y-yeah," he said. "W-we'll show them...right?"

"Right, right, right," Luka said, just so happy that he was here—her brother was here, he was okay, he was still alive, and she had found him.

Then the screaming started again, and both of them froze up at once. Lua's hands dropped from the hug and he grabbed her hand in his.

"We have to run," he said, his voice trembling with fear.

"W-what are they?" Luka said.

"I don't know but they're bad, we can't let them catch us!"

It was only then that Luka realized that there was something on her hand—something warm, and slippery...

"Oh my god, Lua, you're bleeding!"

Lua's hand tightened on hers.

"I-it caught up to me a few times," he mumbled. "I-I think i-it's...I think it's playing with me...it just does one cut and then it lets me squirm free...it's going to get a leg at some point and then—"

The scream that had driven Luka towards Lua went up behind them, matching the one somewhere in front of them. She could feel the tremor that ran down Lua as it ran all the way down to her hand.

"Oh my god," he mumbled. "There are two of them."

. . .

His phone rang four times before he managed to stumble down the stairs, still bleary eyed with sleep, tripping over West's soccer ball and slamming his knees against the counter with a swear word that he probably shouldn't let the kids be hearing—hopefully, they were still asleep.

Letting out a mental burst of obscenities at whoever the hell was calling at this time of night, Kiryu Kyosuke snatched his phone from the counter to look at the caller ID. He didn't recognize the number—he was almost irritated enough to ignore it, but just angry enough to answer it so that maybe he could shout at someone and let off the steam. He hit the green accept button and pulled the phone to his ear, mouth opening to give whatever piece of shit telemarketer this was a piece of his mind—

"It takes exactly one hour and twenty-two minutes to reach Neo-Domino at the highest speeds your bike can handle," the voice on the other end of the line said.

It was such a strange way to start the conversation that Kiryu actually couldn't speak for a moment. What was _more_ surprising was the fact that he _recognized_ this voice.

"...Carly?" he said, blinking into the dark kitchen. "Is that you?"

"No, it's the chicken who crossed the road," Carly's voice said into his ear, ringing with a lot more sarcasm than he felt like he should expect. A nervous tingle started down his arms. He hadn't...really spoken to Carly much after they had, well, you know, come back from the dead, but he was pretty certain that not-Dark-Signer Carly was a little less abrasive than this?

He felt for one chilling moment that he was standing in the cold underground chamber with only half melted candles for light, with the new girl striding in behind Misty with a cold look in her dark eyes and a stinging retort to his casual jibe. It was so jarring that he almost fell over, and he had to press his hand to the counter for balance.

"What do you want?" he said, trying to remember how to breathe. He was going to have another panic attack, wasn't he?

The next time Carly spoke, her voice was a little bit gentler, as though she had sensed his discomfort.

"I need you to get to Neo-Domino in the next one hour and twenty-two minutes," she said. "Because Yusei and Jack are most likely about to do something stupid as soon as Jack gets cleared to leave this hospital, and I'd feel better if someone joined them in their stupidity."

"What are you...what are you talking about?"

Carly's breath whuffled against the speakers.

"Summary: Lua's been kidnapped, Aki's gone missing, the Arcadia Movement is probably involved. Yusei and Jack are probably going to go after them."

What the fuck? In spite of everything, the first thought to run through Kiryu's head was _I leave those guys alone for_ two _seconds and everything goes to hell._

"But why are you calling me? I don't even know if I can get there that fast—two hours? I know it takes longer than that to get there—"

"I was factoring in the very real possibility that you would be speeding," Carly said. "Which you should be speeding to get here."

She hesitated, and for a moment, he could only hear her breath against the speaker.

"Carly?" he prompted.

Her voice was a whisper.

"I'm afraid they're going to get themselves killed. That's why they need you. They need all the help they can get."

Kiryu couldn't help but feel an icy finger dragging down his spine. Were things...that bad?

Then Carly cleared her throat.

"Anyway. One hour and twenty-two minutes. That's probably more time than I can stall them for anyway. You might want to just go straight to the old Arcadia compound, meet them there. Drive safe."

And then she hung up on him, and left him alone in the dark and quiet of the kitchen. Alone with the thoughts that swirled through his head and told him of the worst possible scenarios, over, and over, and over...


	8. M-79 Ambush

Yusei pulled his D-Wheel to a stop, the tires screeching softly through the dark street.

It was quiet here—too quiet. Ever since the building had burned down, no one had really touched it. There were some lines of police tape stretched around the premises, but no actual blockade. It wasn't necessary. There was something eerie about the burned out husk, barely even half a building remaining with crumbled up walls and blackened and shattered windows. The doors hung on their hinges, and there was still a significant amount of rubble covering the ground around the sidewalk, pockmarking the street.

Most of the houses and shop fronts surrounding the old Arcadia Movement compound had been emptied weeks ago. Even the houses that hadn't been damaged with the stains of smoke and soot or droppings of broken bricks and walls that had shattered windows or left holes in the walls were empty, their windows boarded and their tenants gone. No one had really wanted to stay near, it seemed, and with the city expanding to encompass new Satellite citizens and new houses popping up towards the end of the city, no one had ever made any move to raze the last of the building and replace it.

Or maybe it was because its very aura discouraged anyone coming near.

Yusei shivered as he dismounted his bike, Jack sliding off behind him. He had complained the whole way, but it wasn't like they had time to go back to the garage and get Jack's bike, so he would have to deal with the annoyance of having driven here on the back of Yusei's bike.

Yusei hung his helmet on the handlebars, looking up at the husk of a building. Another shudder ran down his spine. What made him think they would even find anything here? He didn't know. But they had to do something...right?

His hands rolled into fists at his sides. God—he didn't have a clue what he was doing. This was all his fault. If he hadn't let anyone touch that game...if he had just taken it completely apart in the first place instead of letting Lua play it first...

"Are we going to move or are we going to stand here being introspective?" Jack said.

Yusei stirred out of his thoughts.

"R-right," he said. "Let's go."

His foot was halfway over the sidewalk when he paused. What was that...sound? The hum of a D-Wheel?

He looked back over his shoulder, Jack raising an eyebrow at him curiously. Then he seemed to hear it too, and he, too looked back.

A shadowy D-Wheel appeared around the corner down the street, silver edges glinting. Yusei's eyes widened. That wasn't—it couldn't be, could it?

The D-Wheel zoomed towards them, skidding to a stop beside Yusei's D-Wheel. Yusei knew who the rider was before he removed his helmet and let loose his shaggy silver hair.

"Kiryu?" he said. "What are you—what are you doing here?"

"I came to help," he said, looking flushed. He tossed his helmet onto his bike as he dismounted.

"But how did you—" Jack started.

"A little hummingbird told me that you two were about to do something stupid," Kiryu said, actually giving them half a smirk. "And well you both know the rule—you can't do anything stupid without _me._ "

Yusei chest untwisted, and he felt a lightness pass over his chest, unknotting the knot that he hadn't even realized was there. He walked over to Kiryu to grasp his arm, and Kiryu half-smiled as he grasped Yusei's back.

"You have no idea how glad I am to see you," Yusei said, feeling as though someone had just lifted a heavy bag of sand off of his shoulders.

"It's about time you got off your ass in that dusty old town of yours," Jack said, sniffing.

Kiryu's grin was a little...hesitant, and his grip wasn't nearly as strong as it used to be. Yusei understood, understood that Kiryu was probably more awkward than he looked. But he couldn't express just how much more _relaxed_ he felt now that Kiryu was here. It was like he could breathe again.

"So!" Kiryu said, leaning back and clapping his hands together. "I heard that Izayoi's missing, Lua's been kidnapped, and Crow's passed out. What's the plan?"

He cracked his knuckles, and for a moment, he looked just like the darkly grinning old Kiryu, the way that he got when one of the Duel Gangs injured one of them and he was ready to get revenge for it. Yusei found himself breathing out a sigh of relief. He felt suddenly like everything was going to be all right.

"We don't have many leads, but we think the Arcadia Movement is involved," he said. "So we...thought we'd check this place out."

Kiryu nodded, glancing over the building. Yusei could see it in his eyes—the old Kiryu, the one who could breathe in the sight of a building and have the whole thing cased in a second. He probably had figured every in and out of the place, how to get in and how to exploit its layout.

"If there's anything in here left, it'll be in the basement," he said. "We should probably just go straight there."

Yusei nodded. It made sense. The rest of the building was a mess, and it would be too easy to spot people through the ruined walls. Anything that was left of the Arcadia Movement had probably been moved underground.

"Well, let's get started," Kiryu said.

Yusei grabbed his Duel Disk from his D-Wheeler, and Jack was able to make do with the spare on the back of Yusei's bike. At least he never went anywhere without his deck, unlike the way he would forget everything else.

Almost automatically, Kiryu took the lead, his ragged old duster flapping behind him in the motion. Yusei and Jack followed—there was nothing more to talk about. There was a mission to be done—it actually felt, Yusei thought, a little nostalgic. If only Crow were here, too.

Kiryu eased the hanging door out of the way, holding it open so that Yusei and Jack could get through. Inside was dark and more than a little dusty. Yusei almost sneezed, but he held it back—it felt almost dangerous to make any loud noise in here.

Over head, the remains of the above floors loomed like shadows. The building had once been like a big hotel, with a space in between each floor so that you could look all the way up to the top. Now, you could only see up to the sky, with only a handful of landings still partially intact. It still smelled faintly like charred wood and sulfur, and the shadows hung low and dark over the rubble that littered the lobby and cracked the once shimmering marble floor.

All three of them stood still for a moment, letting their eyes adjust to the dark.

"The basement door should be behind the reception desk," Kiryu said softly, but his voice still seemed to echo and reverberate through the darkness.

"How do you know?" Jack whispered back.

Kiryu hesitated.

"I...came here. Once. Back when...you know."

Oh. They all fell silent—no one really wanted to bring up Kiryu's time as a Dark Signer, especially not now. Yusei felt silently into pace behind Kiryu as he lead the way around the rubble and shards of boulders jutting out from the floor. There wasn't really a reception desk anymore so much as there were slivers of wood littering the floor, but the door in the wall behind it looked like it had held up.

Kiryu tried the handle—locked.

"I believe this one is your area of expertise," Kiryu said, looking back at Yusei. "It's a regular deadbolt."

"I don't have any of my old tools with me," Yusei said.

Kiryu fumbled with his jacket for a moment, then pulled out a small box and handed it over to Yusei. Yusei felt his eyes lighting up as he accepted it—Kiryu still had this? It was the first lock pick set Yusei had ever put together; he had passed it off to Kiryu back when they were in Team Satisfaction and Yusei had found some others he could use. Kiryu was decent at it, but Yusei had always been the expert.

Yusei popped open the little box and eased out his smallest pick. He knelt at the door, fiddling with the lock. It popped open easily, and the door swung open.

"That was fast," Jack said.

"Nice one, Yus," Kiryu said.

Yusei smiled as he replaced the lock pick. He tried to give the box back to Kiryu, but he waved it back.

"We might need to open a few more doors, so hang onto it."

Yusei nodded, tucking it away in his inside pocket.

Kiryu lead the way down the dark, narrow stairs. He walked slowly, probably making sure the stairs were safe. Yusei didn't much like this, there were no lights and he could only feel his way down one step at a time. Once, Jack slipped behind him, and Yusei jumped before Jack caught himself. Luckily, no one fell, but he was incredibly glad when he reached the bottom of the stairs.

It was still incredibly dark, and after a beat and a few clicking sounds, Kiryu lifted his lighter into the air. He turned in a slow circle, and Yusei looked around, trying to get his bearings. It looked like an ordinary basement, as far as he could tell. There were a bunch of boxes shoved around the walls, and the lighter could see all four corners.

"This is pretty small for how big the building is," Jack said.

"That's what I was thinking," said Kiryu.

He frowned, walking towards one wall and inspecting the boxes.

Yusei realized then that his heart was hammering in his ears. He felt...he felt sick, and dizzy. Or no...no something was tugging at him. Right at the base of his stomach. His mouth was dry at the top and he swallowed thickly.

Then his arm panged, and he put his hand on top of it, groaning. His eyes found Jack's in the dark, and he realized Jack was holding his arm, too.

"You felt that?" he said.

Yusei nodded.

"Aki is here," he said. "And...and something else, too?"

There was a second feeling, a little like a fellow Signer being near by...but he couldn't place it. That was odd. He could always sort of tell when the others were near, and who they were because of the feeling in his arm.

"You guys sense her?" Kiryu said.

"Yeah," said Yusei.

"Which way?"

Yusei turned in a slow circle, trying to focus in on the sense. He stopped as he faced the back wall. He looked at Jack, and Jack nodded—he thought so too. Kiryu frowned and approached that wall. He ran his fingers over the boxes and swung the lighter around for more light, muttering to himself.

He shoved a few boxes out of the way then, and started feeling at the wall.

"Those boxes have been moved recently," he said. "There are dust marks on the floor and they're banged up on the corners. This must be..."

There was a soft click as his hands ran over the wall, and a door slid open, letting in a dim stream of light.

"...a secret door," Kiryu said, grinning widely.

Yusei relaxed with a smile too. They were getting somewhere. And Aki was here, for sure! They were going to find her and they were going to get her out of here.

Kiryu stepped into the long hallway first, looking around.

"Looks clear," he said, although his voice sounded a little uncertain. "I think..."

He hesitated, his eyes narrowing. Then he was reaching for the Duel Disk gun at his side, flipping it up out of its holster and clamping it to his arm as it activated.

"What is it?" Yusei said.

"I thought I saw something move," he said. "This is...too quiet."

He said the second sentence almost like an afterthought, and Yusei shivered. He activated his own Duel Disk before following Kiryu into the hallway. There were three hallways, one to the left, one to the right, and one straight ahead. There were a handful of doors in the walls in each hallway, and they were all lit with just a single strip of faint, yellow-y light. It made everything look kind of rusty.

Yusei's skin crawled. He didn't like how thin these hallways, or how long. It would be super easy to get cornered. The bottleneck wasn't appreciated.

"Which way?" Kiryu said. "Since you guys have the geiger counter for Signers."

Yusei swiveled his head back and forth.

"Down this way," he said, pointing to the front hallway. Jack nodded to confirm.

"Good," Kiryu said, still staring down the right hallway. "Let's watch our backs."

Yusei went first, walking carefully down the hall and glancing at each door as they passed. He tried a few handles, but they were all locked.

Jack took up the rear with Kiryu in the middle, his eyes darting between the doors as they passed as though he expected something to burst through them. Jack was walking backwards, his shoulders tense as he kept an eye on their rear. Yusei couldn't blame them for the twitchiness—he was feeling it himself, as though there were eyes on him. Could there be cameras? He wouldn't put it past the Arcadia Movement.

Then Jack swore, and the whole hallway shook and rattled, dust raining down over their heads.

"Behind us!" he shouted.

"Intruders!" someone else shouted.

Yusei whipped around, and saw the man running towards them, Duel Disk already whirring with a card activated. Behind him, a hulking Battleguard dragged its monstrous club against the wall, making the whole building shake—like it was a real monster.

"Psychic duelist," Jack swore. "We're in the right place."

Kiryu started to turn around, Duel Disk raised, but Jack shook his head with a snap.

"I'll take care of it! Keep going!"

"But Jack—"

Jack was already slipping cards off the top of his deck and throwing them onto the disk. One of his Resonators appeared with a dinging sound as he moved for his next card.

"Yusei can find Aki as well as I can! I'll keep the back from catching up!"

"You're going to die for trespassing!" the psychic duelist snarled. "Battleguard, attack him!"

Kiryu swore, but Jack activated his spell and blocked the strike.

"Go!" Jack roared.

Yusei's heart hammered in his ears, but he knew Jack was right. Jack could handle himself—right?

Kiryu was the one that ended up making the decision, swearing again—something about where he would shove Jack's corpse if he let himself die—then barreled forward, taking Yusei along with him. Yusei bolted to, eyes in front in case anyone blocked their forward motion.

But no one appeared, and another fork sprouted.

"Left!" Yusei said. He hoped he was right, he didn't have Jack to confirm this time. Kiryu just trusted him, however, and they bolted down the left hallway.

After running for a few minutes, and taking a few more winding turns, both of them had to slow to a stop. Yusei leaned against the wall, trying to catch his breath. He couldn't hear the sounds of the duel anymore behind them, and there wasn't even a vibration. How far had they gone? This place was like a maze.

"How...far...do you think...she is?" Kiryu said.

Yusei swallowed, trying to catch his breath.

"I...I don't know."

He thought the sense would get stronger the farther they went, but it was almost like...like she was moving farther away? Was he imagining it?

"She...she might be moving," he said, frowning. "Yeah. Yeah, I think that's what's happening...she's moving, that's why...that's why I don't feel like she's getting closer."

"Do you think they're moving her now that they know we're here?" Kiryu said, straightening against the wall.

Yusei shrugged. He couldn't know. Aki was probably being kept prisoner here, so it made sense...he didn't want to think about an alternative. An alternative like the possibility that Aki had...

...had come back to the Arcadia Movement of her own choice.

Yusei bit his lip. She wouldn't...would she? He thought...he thought she was happy with them. He knew how important the Movement had been to her back then, when she thought she was alone and she didn't deserve any better. Could she have been threatened or guilted into rejoining? Aki was still healing...coming into contact with her old organization, the people that had tried to break her into an obedient soldier could have had disastrous effects for her, especially right after thinking she was to blame for hurting Yusei...

No, he didn't want to think about it. They'd find her. They'd find her and they'd bring her home to safety. They'd find Lua too, and Crow would get better. This nightmare would end.

"You okay?" Kiryu said.

Yusei hadn't realized that Kiryu had come closer until Kiryu put a hand on his shoulder, gently, as though expecting Yusei to flinch away. Yusei managed a smile.

"I'm just...worried," he said. He looked down. "I'm really glad you're here. I feel like...it's going to work out now."

Kiryu tilted his head.

"I really don't know why I give you such a vote of confidence, but I guess I'll take it..." he said. "Are you sure...nothing besides the obvious is bothering you? You don't look good."

Yusei breathed out, heavy, feeling sick.

"I failed them," he mumbled. "I couldn't...what kind of leader of the Signers am I?"

"Oh, fuck, Yusei," Kiryu said, shaking his head. "You haven't failed anyone."

"No, I have," Yusei said. "I can't do this, Kiryu. I can't be the leader that the Signers need. I don't have what it takes...I don't have what you had."

Kiryu shook his head, looking incredulous.

"The last time I checked, my stint as a leader ended up with me dying in prison and the rest of you guys getting scattered and banged up," he said.

"That wasn't really you."

Kiryu grimaced, as though he'd like to differ, but he didn't say anything. Yusei's fists rolled up at his sides.

"Why is this so hard?" he murmured. "I can't keep track of everyone...I can't hold everyone together...I can't...protect anyone..."

Kiryu's hands dropped onto Yusei's shoulders.

"Yusei—"

Whatever he was going to say, it was drowned out by the scream that rang through the hallways. Both young men froze in place. Ice crept down through Yusei's blood as he glanced down the hallway to his right. That—that had come from up ahead of them, hadn't it? It wasn't behind them, so it wasn't Jack, thank god, but...what was...

Another scream, a different one this time—and it cut off remarkably quickly. Yusei felt his stomach turn.

"What was that?" he said.

Kiryu let go of Yusei and stepped in front of him, his Duel Disk raised.

At the end of the hall, a shape appeared. Yusei tensed—but wait, the shape was limping. He was—oh god.

Even from the distance, about ten, fifteen feet away, he could see how horrible the man looked. His arm was hanging limply at his side, blood running freely down his shoulder as he clutched at it, the blood squeezing up between his fingers. His white lab coat was stained with splatters of blood all over. One of his legs was dragging, and he whined with pain every time he had to put wait on it—it looked twisted and floppy, like his knee had been completely dislocated. Blood stained his face, running down from just under his hair, and one of his eyes was completely sealed shut. His other eye widened when he saw Kiryu and Yusei.

Yusei started forward automatically, hand reached out.

"What the hell happened to you?" he said as he stepped forward.

The man's eye was so wide that Yusei thought it was going to pop out of his head.

"She...she got out," he mumbled.

And then something huge and thick whipped around the corridor and snagged the man around the chest. He screamed—Yusei made a wild swipe for him, but it was too late. He was jerked back around the corridor and his scream abruptly cut off.

Yusei swore as he bolted forward—Kiryu shouted at him to stop, wait, they didn't know what was out there, but Yusei had to do _something!_

He whipped around the corner—and he almost threw up.

That was a severed arm lying there on the floor in front of him—and that wasn't even the worst of the carnage. Blood completely stained the walls as though someone had just... _exploded_ in the middle of the room. There were other unidentifiable pieces scattered across the ground and oh _god_ he didn't want to know what that pile was.

Just beyond the carnage, a huge, writhing mass took up the entire space between the floor and walls and ceiling. It took him a moment to figure out exactly what it was, and when he did, his blood ran cold.

Vines. It was a mass of slithering vines, thick, dark, and thorny, and stained with gleaming edges of blood. Sick looking roses poked out of various corners, red but mottled with green and purple like some kind of fungus. Petals drifted off to the ground and scattered among the blood as the vines slowly slithered past them. And somewhere in the middle of that mass, between the few and and far between gaps in the mass, there was a shadow inside. Something slender and tall, something...human. He caught the faintest glimpse of glinting, feral eyes, like a cat or a snake. A hiss rose up from the inside of the writhing mass.

"Yusei!" Kiryu shouted as he, too, barreled around the corner. "Yusei, what—"

The mass bulged for a moment, and then it parted—so that it could spit out a twisted, mangled body. Yusei almost couldn't recognize that it was the man he had just seen moments before—bile rose up in his throat and he almost fell to his knees. He clamped a hand to his mouth and threw up against the back of his tongue. Kiryu gripped his shoulder, one arm raised defensively with his Duel Disk despite the horrible shaking in his arm, the way his face had gone almost as white as his hair and his eyes had gone wide.

"What the fucking hell is that?"

Yusei could see it—could see the vines sprouting from her back and around her arms and fused into her skin with their thorns, could see her hair wild and flaming around her face, her teeth bared in a feral snarl. He could feel the pulse in his arm that told him what he already knew.

"Oh my god," he mumbled. "Aki."


	9. Moonwalker

Yusei couldn't breathe. He couldn't even think. His brain wouldn't process what his eyes were seeing.

"A—Aki?" he managed to get out of his throat.

Her eyes were so wide—wild and red-rimmed. The remains of tears stained the sides of her dirt streaked face, her lips pulled back from her teeth in an animalistic snarl. She was almost unrecognizable, only barely visible through the window in the vines she had wreathed around her like writing, thorny tentacles. There was _blood_ dripping from most of the thorns, a few splatters of it across her cheek and her torn shirt. Her chest and shoulders heaved with each ragged, snarling breath—was—was this even Aki?

"Aki?" he said again, stepping forward. "Aki, it's okay. Aki. Please...please say something."

Aki seemed to draw back a little, but it was hard to tell because the vines didn't quite move with her. She looked...nervous, Yusei realized suddenly. Like a wild animal, cornered, ready to either bolt or strike depending on what she needed to do. Yusei swallowed thickly, and raised his hands out reassuringly.

"Aki, it's okay. You're safe, okay? I'm right here. It's going to be okay."

He couldn't even be sure that she understood him right now. The way that her eyes were darting around made her look like a frightened, reactive animal. She didn't show any recognition of his words. Was this Aki? Was it a trick? No, the burning in his arm told him _yes_ , this was Aki. There was no mistaking it. They had done something to her—they had...they had _hurt_ her. And now she was scared, she was reacting to protect herself. She hadn't attacked him, she knew who he was somewhere in there, right? He could get through to her. He could calm her down...he could bring her back.

"Aki," he said again, keeping his voice low, soothing. "Just breathe. It's okay."

He moved half a step forward, trying to ignore the puddle of blood under his boots. Aki's vines tensed, and Kiryu swore—Kiryu reached half for Yusei's shoulder as though to stop him from getting too close, his eyes fixed on those vines that looked like snakes ready to shoot forward and bite—

The second Kiryu moved, Aki panicked.

A strangled scream rose out of her throat as a sudden whirlwind of vines punched towards them. Kiryu shouted, grabbing Yusei around the shoulders and whipping him down to the floor out of reach.

 _No, wait, we're going to make this worse, we need to keep her calm—Kiryu, no, she doesn't want to hurt us—_

Kiryu was shouting, Yusei's head spun, he felt Kiryu's hands underneath his armpits as he hauled Yusei back to his feet and dragged him around the corner. Aki's monstrous scream echoed after them—Yusei tried to turn, tried to get back to her, but Kiryu was shouting at him— _"It's not safe, she's not safe, we have to retreat, that's not Izayoi—"_

Kiryu didn't understand, it _was_ Aki—Aki was scared and panicking and Yusei had to get to her—

Her vines came around the corner after them like a massive herd of snakes and then Yusei snapped back to himself. He swore, bolting down the hall after Kiryu.

Aki was scared but she was also dangerous right now, and they weren't going to get through to her like this! What had happened to her?

 _She'll be more upset if she comes out of this and finds out that she's hurt us, we have to make sure that doesn't happen_ , Yusei thought.

Kiryu seemed to realize that Yusei was finally running and released his arm so that they could both run freely. Yusei dared to look over his shoulder and he felt bile rise up in his throat with the sudden burst of panic. He had known Aki was powerful, but he had never seen anything like this—the walls were coated with the vines slithering after them, each one as thick around as he was with thorns the length of his hand. Had she even been wearing a Duel Disk? How was she doing this?

A vine caught his ankle.

He cried out as he went down, smacking face first into the floor. Kiryu skidded to a stop and whipped around, eyes wide with panic.

"Yusei!" he screamed, but the vines were dropping down around him and he swore as he fired his Duel Disk up to life. Gunfire rang out over Yusei's head and he clapped his hands over his ears, pressing his face into the floor as Kiryu's monsters fired a volley into the encroaching plants. He felt the vine release his ankle and he scrambled to his hands and knees, pushing himself out of reach.

Kiryu ran in front of him, Duel Disk raised like a shield. His Infernity monster hovered at his side, firing shot after shot at the vines. Each one writhed like a living thing when it was hit, and Yusei wasn't sure if he was imagining it but he thought he heard Aki's screams coming in time with the shots—could she _feel_ what the vines were feeling?

"Kiryu—that's Aki, we can't hurt her," Yusei managed to force out of his throat.

"What? You mean that—that thing is _actually_ Izayoi?"

The burning in Yusei's arm couldn't lie—that was her.

"They did something to her, Kiryu—they did something to her and she's panicking. I don't think she knows what she's doing."

"Well what she's _doing_ is almost killing us!" Kiryu said. "Fuck—we have to retreat, Yusei, we can't do anything for her like this. We have to find out what happened—"

Yusei swallowed thickly—Kiryu was right. There was nothing they could do for Aki, pinned down like this.

 _She's still in there,_ he thought desperately. _She doesn't want to do this_.

They had to find out what had happened, and how to reverse it. Yusei shoved himself to his feet and activated his own Duel Disk.

"I tune Junk Synchron with Speed Warrior-Gathering stars will call upon a new force! Become the path its light shines upon! Synchro Summon! Show yourself, Junk Warrior!"

His monster appeared in a metallic spray, brandishing its metal fists. It shot forward, punching at creeping vines to help support Kiryu's Infernity gunman.

"Let's go!" Yusei said.

Kiryu nodded, backing up slowly, and then turning and bolting after Yusei. Their monsters covered their backs as they ran—Yusei supposed he should count their lucky stars that the Solid Vision could stand up to the real mass just as well, at least delaying the creep of her vines.

But they couldn't keep running around in this thin, labyrinthine death trap like this. There had to be somewhere else they could go, regroup. What about these doors? What was inside them?

All of them had keypads and card readers on the outside, he couldn't hack those without a significant amount of time—which they didn't have. He started grabbing knobs as he ran to see if any would open. None of them gave, and he swore as they kept running.

Her vines were starting to slow, though—were they actually out running her? He couldn't see her, just her vines creeping around the halls after them. Maybe she wasn't chasing them. Maybe she was just trying to chase them away from her.

Yusei needed to stop. He lurched to a halt, gasping for breath with his Duel Disk raised, swallowing thickly. Junk Warrior was hanging in there, but he looked a little scratched up. They could hold out for a little longer, but he had to breathe. He had to come up with some kind of plan.

"She's going completely mad," Kiryu swore. "She looked like she was going to actually kill you."

"I—I don't know," Yusei said. He didn't know what he could say.

The vines were edging backwards a little bit now, as though they couldn't quite follow this far. It seemed like he might have been right—Aki wasn't following them, she had just sent her vines after them. They had a second to breathe.

"What now?" Kiryu said.

Yusei gulped air down, trying to think of an answer.

"She's beautiful, isn't she?"

Yusei jumped at the voice—a new one, right by his ear—

He whipped around, but there was no one there. He knew he hadn't imagined it, though, because Kiryu was looking around wildly, too.

After a brief moment, one of the walls slid partially open. A screen appeared, embedded in the wall. It was dark inside, but Yusei could see the shadowy shape of a person. He could just barely make out a round, probably balding head from the glint at the time, the edge of a crooked nose. Yusei backed up slightly, still facing the vines. Kiryu hung back, looking over his shoulder with a tense, tight expression.

"Who am I talking to?" Yusei said, glaring into the screen, trying to get a glimpse of the face inside.

"My apologies," the voice said—there was some kind of accent to it. English, maybe? Definitely a foreigner. "I believe we may have met once before...in another form, though. You may call me Jupiter."

Yusei blinked once, the name not ringing any bells. Then it hit him—the game. The wizard at the beginning's name was Jupiter.

"You made that game," Yusei said, his voice becoming a snarl in spite of himself. "What did you do to Aki? Where's Lua?"

Jupiter chuckled.

"I'd be happy to answer your questions, of course," he said. "But I want to share something interesting with you, first. Did you know...Miss Izayoi was one of the first people to ever test that little game of mine. She doesn't remember it, of course, but that's why she reacts so strongly."

Yusei opened his mouth but Jupiter kept talking.

"Yes, Miss Izayoi has been with me for quite a long time, and I was very happy to see her on my doorstep again," he laughed. "But since I've known her for so long, I have a few tricks up my sleeve, you see."

His hand moved on the screen, and for a brief moment, one side of his face was illuminated by a brief red glow as he pushed a button. Immediately, a faint whining sound trilled through the compound. What... _was_ that? It was kind of making his stomach turn, despite how quiet it was. He actually felt a little light-headed.

And then Aki's screams echoed down the hall, and her vines started to writhe and flail with more ferocity, coming down the hall after them again.

"She's very sensitive to that noise," Jupiter mused as Kiryu shouted, his guns blazing again. "I'm afraid she associates it with some particularly difficult conditioning I once put her through."

Yusei couldn't see for the rage that was suddenly pulsing through his head. He was seeing red—he couldn't breathe, he couldn't see, he couldn't think except for—

 _He did this to her._

 _He hurt her._

 _She's screaming—she's in pain—_

 _HE HURT HER._

Behind him, one of the locked doors slid open.

"If you want to know the details of what I did to dear Miss Izayoi, and perhaps how to reverse them, come this way...we'll have a chat. Oh, I might even know a thing or two about Mr. Lua."

Yusei's brain pulsated with anger, so much of it that he could barely stand. This man hurt Aki—this man hurt Lua. This man made the game that was making their lives a living hell and Aki kept screaming, her cries sounded more distressed than rageful, breaking and cracking as though she were in pain, as though she were crying.

"I've got this, go, Yusei!" Kiryu shouted over the screams and the gunfire. The vines were whipping like a kraken's tentacles, but he looked red-faced and angry too, and he jerked his head at Yusei. " _GO!_ "

It was the only push Yusei needed. Yusei whipped around and bolted towards the open door, plunging into the dark room beyond.

His fists were ready to rip into something and he hoped it was going to be Jupiter's face.


	10. Dream Chopper

Yusei wanted to run all the way down through to where Jupiter was, but as soon as he made it through the first door, he found that was going to be impossible. This room was small and cramped with desks, and he had to slow down to pick his way around the mess of paper that littered the floor. The door on the other side opened silently on its own, indicating where he should go. Tensing, ready for some kind of trap, Yusei moved forward.

Jupiter's voice came over an intercom in the room as he walked.

"I can see you're angry," he said, almost a laugh at the back of his voice. It made Yusei's fists curl up and his throat close with rage.

"You hurt my friends," he said.

"Oh, please, you speak of Miss Izayoi? She's hardly a friend of yours as much as she's mine."

"Shut the fuck up. You don't know what you're talking about."

Jupiter laughed, and Yusei almost had to stop, he was so angry that he couldn't stop shaking. He kept going, though, moving into the next room. Another office, it seemed, with dusty, cracked computers. How far in was Jupiter?

"You've known her for all of...what? Four months?" Jupiter said. "She was under my tutelage for something around...two years, at least."

"'Tutelage?' You mean brainwashing," Yusei snarled.

Jupiter only laughed again. Yusei almost tripped over a box as the door in front of him slid open and led him into another hallway. He looked both ways, and saw another door swinging open. He walked towards it—Jupiter had him completely in his hands, he knew. He could be leading Yusei anywhere. This was almost definitely a trap. But Yusei was willing to take the risk if it meant getting his hands around this man's neck.

"Miss Izayoi was a particularly gifted girl," Jupiter said as Yusei made his way to the next door. "Her powers hardly needed any encouraging, but her mentality, that was something we had to be sure of. Divine asked me to...play with her programming, as it were."

Jupiter snorted as Yusei's blood boiled.

"Divine was such a fool," he said. "I had to do all of this almost from scratch, you know. He could play with her heart, of course, but the heart is such a fragile, wavering thing—case in point, she attached to _you_ very quickly even after her so-called devotion to Divine."

"She didn't attach to me," Yusei snapped. "Aki is her own person."

"You'd love to think that, wouldn't you?" Jupiter said, laughing. "She hasn't been her own person for a very, very long time...and hopefully, soon enough, neither will you."

Yusei's rage quieted just a tiny bit with the introduction of a cold chill in his blood. And it wasn't just because of Jupiter's words, either.

It was because of the room that he had just been lead into.

This room was no office. It was a wide space, white and sterile, lined with hospital beds. Each bed was surrounded with computer screens and wires and little trolleys full of doctor's instruments. Most of them were in various states of dust and disrepair, but a handful of beds looked new and cared for.

And another handful of them were stained with blood.

Yusei's stomach twisted and he had to hug himself tightly around the waist to steady himself.

"It looks beautiful, doesn't it?" Jupiter teased him from the intercom. "This is where I used to do all my studies. The root of where a psychic duelist's power comes from...I was so close to figuring it out, before you and your friends had to come along, and ruin everything."

It was the first sign of anger or irritation that Yusei had heard come out of the man's voice, but it quickly smoothed away.

"Do you want to know what happens in this room?" Jupiter said, sounding gleeful. "I have a feeling you'll find it entertaining."

"Shut up," Yusei snarled.

He still felt sick, but he forced himself to move forward down the hall.

"Divine was too quick with the dial on the electroshock machines sometimes," Jupiter said, in spite of Yusei's warning. "I didn't let him play with the experimentation too much. He killed the children as often as he awakened their powers."

"Shut _up_ ," Yusei said again.

"Occasionally, though, the corpses had their uses," Jupiter said. "I learned quite a bit about the workings of the normal and psychic brains while I was researching...I even found a surprising truth—that psychic duelists have no different a brain than ordinary people. What causes their powers to appear, then?"

Yusei tried not to look at a bed that seemed to have recent blood splattered over the pillow, and glimmering tools on the trolley beside it that were coated with a thin sheen of blood. He swallowed through the bile.

"I still haven't figured it out," Jupiter continued. "The brain certainly reacts when performing psychic activities, but not in any recognizable way...I've started to believe that the true powers rest in the _soul_..."

"Stop _talking_."

"Oh? I thought you wanted to know what I did to Miss Izayoi. Fascinating process, really. Classical conditioning, subliminal messaging, a bit of mind-altering drugs at correct doses when she wasn't expecting it, occasional molding therapy disguised as mindfulness techniques. Miss Izayoi was my favorite experiment. Quite a success story, if I do say so myself."

"Don't you _dare_ talk about her like that!"

Jupiter's laugh sounded like nails on a chalkboard and it was all Yusei could do not to start punching furniture right then and there.

"Does it distress you?" he said. "Imagining Miss Izayoi strapped to one of these beds? She's been in this room before. In fact, your other friend, Lua, was just in here a bit ago as well."

Yusei felt like he was going to black out.

"You _bastard._ "

"As for Miss Izayoi, she's still in her unsightly rage. I'll have to realter her programming again...I may have misjudged how powerful the effects of the original Callisto Project were."

Yusei swallowed again, trying not to trip.

"Your stupid arcade game?"

"It wasn't a game at first, of course," Jupiter said. "I just found out later that it would be more efficient to...outsource. You know, it was first made just to screen for powers...later I learned how to alter it...and how to extract souls from bodies."

Yusei almost froze—he was almost to the end of this horrible room with its horrible scent of despair and decay.

"Is—is that what you did to Lua? And Crow?"

"Quite," Jupiter said. "Particularly strong powered individuals find their souls consigned to a very interesting little pocket dimension, known as the Outlands...that place is a realm of complete darkness. Against it, the spectrum of the soul can easily be studied from an outsider's perspective. Add a little monster or two, and I can see how the soul reacts under stress, and what happens when their powers finally awaken under duress."

"You bastard," Yusei said. "I'm going to make you bring him back. I'm going to make you bring them _all_ back."

Jupiter laughed.

"Will you really, though?"

The door finally opened and released him from the hellish hospital room behind him. Yusei tried to hide how relieved he was to escape it as he stumbled into the next room.

This room was even bigger than the last one, a large, warehouse kind of room. The floors were a pure, sterile white, and there was a balcony running around the top, glassed off, probably an observation deck. In this room, there were lines of strange, futuristic looking machines along the walls with various colored screens and various readouts, that even Yusei couldn't comprehend. Some kind of strange, white, egg shaped pods sat on one end, looking like they were sprouting out of the ground like odd bulbs. Something about those set Yusei on edge, and he backed off a little. He turned in a slow circle to take in the whole room. There weren't any doors except the one he had come into, so this must be the endgame. He raised his Duel Disk, prepared for some kind of assault. It was too quiet all of a sudden.

"Where are you?" Yusei said. "I'm warning you—I'm done playing your games! You're going to tell me what you did to Aki, and how to undo it."

A chuckle echoed around the room, and Yusei's eyes whipped up to the large observation deck.

He appeared at the window, then—he was a tall, broad shouldered man, with a thick, square-ish face and a blocky nose, his head entirely bald and his eyes deep sunken. He looked foreign—English, or American. His white lab coat was neatly buttoned up, three pens placed in a perfect row in his breast pocket. His lips curled upwards ever so slightly.

"Get down here," Yusei snarled, lifting his disk. "Duel me."

Jupiter just laughed, and it was even more disgusting seeing his smug face while hearing the horrible sound.

Then all at once, the floor snapped at his feet. Yusei swore, jumping back—it was too late, there were prongs jumping out of the floor and clamping around his body like a tight cage, catching him between them like he was a fly caught in a pair of tongs. He struggled to reach for his disk, but he was trapped, his arms were pinned to his sides and these weird plastic prongs were squeezing him too tightly in. Goddammit—he had fallen for the trap!

"What I did do to Aki?" Jupiter said, and Yusei bristled at him using her name so familiarly. "Well...you're going to find out soon enough...because you'll be experiencing it."


	11. Shadow Dancer

Crow woke slowly, and he wasn't entirely sure that he had woken up at all. It was still just as dark as it had been when his eyes had closed.

"What the fuck..." he muttered. He managed to lift his arm and rub his hand over his eyes, despite the heaviness in his body. Rubbing his eyes didn't do him any good to see, but at least he could still feel and use his body.

He sat slowly, the ground shifting like sand beneath him as he moved. He ran his hand briefly over the ground, pushing his fingers through it to confirm that it was some kind of sand. It stuck a bit to his fingers in places, though, as though it were a fine sand mixed with soot. He sniffed it briefly—gross. It smelled like sulfur...in fact, this whole place smelled like sulfur.

And then he heard the screaming.

His entire body went rigid, as though reacting to some primal, innate corner of his soul that told him that he had to fight or flee. His throat stiffened up so that he almost couldn't breathe and it was all he could do not to crumple up and curl in on himself at the sound—it was so psychologically distressing that tears actually came to his eyes.

But then he heard the other sound alongside the screaming.

" _Leave her alone, leave her alone, leave her alone—"_

That was—

Lua!

Whatever hold the scream had had on him, it shattered in an instant. Crow shot to his feet and bolted, his boots sliding across the sand.

"Lua!" he shouted. He heard a scream that must be Luka—what was she doing here too? "Luka! I'm coming!"

Where were they? The screaming and both of their shouts seemed to echo around the eternal darkness—despite the line of line along the faraway horizon, as though the sun might be about to rise, he couldn't see anything at all. Where were they? How was he supposed to find them like this?

All of the sounds cut off abruptly.

Crow's heart jumped into his throat.

 _Oh god, oh god, oh god, I can't have been too late, I can't have been—_

His mind started to conjure images in the dark of a broken, twisted Lua, a bloody Luka, and he felt his stomach turn and an angry scream curling up in his chest just ready to loose. He couldn't—he couldn't—

 _Veer left_ , his brain said automatically, and he just responded. His shoulder scraped along the edge of something crumbly and stone as he turned and he realized—he _had_ been about to smack into something!

 _Right_ , he thought instinctively, and he whipped around the corner again.

Something whispered at the back of his head, like a breeze. He could almost feel it, tickling his face. _There's a wind here—it's tiny but—_

He felt like he could see it. He felt like the tiny, tiny breeze around his arms was sending out little ripples from his motion, bouncing off of the things around him and...and letting him see. He could feel them, he could feel the way the air bent around the objects and it was almost as good as being able to see. He vaulted easily over a boulder, using it to push off for greater momentum.

He had no idea what was going on or how this was working but he wasn't going to complain! How far could he stretch this...this "wind sense?"

It rustled at the back of his head like a map, and he could construct a path through what appeared to be a crumbling stone labyrinth towards...Lua and Luka!

He could sense the shape of them, breaking up the wind as they stumbled forward. One of them was limping—he couldn't quite tell who was who like this, but he could tell that one of them was supporting the other, practically dragging them through the sand as their breaths echoed ragged against the darkness. They were close! And...

And what was that behind them?

Crow felt a chill pass through him as he attempted to feel out the shape with his newfound wind sense. But he couldn't...not quite. It was almost as though the air passed mostly through it, only tiny wisps of what seemed like smoke or fabric to judge that it was there at all, like seeing a shadow with nothing to cast it. Parts of it seemed solid, but he couldn't wrap his wind around it enough to tell how. Even with this sense, he had a feeling that...that even if it had been light out, he wouldn't be able to see what this thing was.

That was more terrifying than anything.

"Lua! Luka!" Crow shouted. "It's Crow! I'm coming!"

He heard tiny gasps ahead of him, and he rounded a corner and then there they were, smacking into him. He threw his arms around both of them—they sobbed as they threw themselves against him, their hands twisting into his jacket as they cried and babbled that something was chasing them, and Lua's leg got stabbed and he couldn't run and they couldn't see anything and they didn't know how to get out—

"It's okay, it's okay, I've got you!" Crow said. "Lua, grab my hand, I'll carry you if you can't run!"

The screaming started again—the thing was close and it wanted them to start _running._ Crow fought past the instinctive fear. It got harder after the second one started screaming too, from another location.

 _They're driving us somewhere,_ he thought. _They're closing in like hunters, trying to make us run somewhere specific, like a pack of hyenas. But where?_

His wind sense wasn't tell him, he couldn't stretch it far enough.

He twisted around and lifted Lua onto his back, then fumbled back for Luka's hand.

"Don't let go!" he shouted. "Follow me!"

They ran, then—Crow didn't even stop to think that he didn't even know how he or anyone had gotten here. It didn't matter—he just had to try and keep them safe—

 **. . .**

"You bastard!" Yusei shouted, struggling against the prongs that held him fast. "You can't break me—I won't let you get away with this!"

"It's already too late," Jupiter said. "You might be interested to know that my project has already been semi-successful...you won't be alone during the process, at least. Doesn't that make you feel better?"

Yusei's mouth opened to ask what he meant, but then his heart stopped in his throat as he felt the syringe prick into his arm just under his shoulder. He managed to crane his neck over his shoulder, his heart going cold as he saw who had just drugged him.

"C-Crow," he mumbled.

Crow didn't respond—his eyes were blank and he looked like he was about to fall over himself. After pricking Yusei with the needle, his arm dropped back limply to his side, as though he were nothing more than a doll on strings. His head was lolling slightly to the side, and his face was pale. And worst of all, Yusei couldn't even sense him. He couldn't feel his presence through his Signer mark—it was like Crow wasn't even there.

Yusei gasped for breath as he felt the drug coursing through him, making his arms feel heavy and his legs shake under him. When the prongs finally released him, he couldn't stand up—he crumpled to the floor, limp and useless.

"Excellent," Jupiter said, sounding far too pleased. Yusei wanted to scream, but his throat felt thick, too. This drug was fast acting, and he couldn't move at all! "It's unfortunate that I couldn't get a full brainwash done on your friend yet, but removing his soul to the Outlands makes his body a useful puppet until his soul returns."

 _Bastard_ , Yusei thought, tears bubbling to the corners of his eyes.

He couldn't protect any of them—he couldn't protect _any_ of them! Even Crow, who should have been safe at the hospital, was being turned into a puppet for Jupiter's use! And his soul was in the same place as Lua and Luka, now—that meant all three of them were trapped!

Crow might be acting like a puppet, but he was still strong enough to lift Yusei under the arms, dragging him across the floor towards one of the egg shaped pods. Crow pushed a button on the side and it went transparent along the top. One side opened and revealed a low slung seat with several screens over head—with frightening looking straps and wires lined along the edges. Crow heaved Yusei inside and flipped him over, dragging the straps over his wrists and ankles and one over his head so that he couldn't move even if he hadn't been drugged. Then the empty shell of Crow started to pin the ends of wires to the sides of Yusei's head, and to his palms and under his shirt.

"You Signers are the reason the Arcadia Movement fell," he said. "And now, you'll become the instrument of its revival."

"You're—you're crazy," Yusei managed to slur through his drugged throat. "We...we won't...we're not...not psychic..."

Jupiter only chuckled.

"You think psychic dueling is the only way that power presents itself? No, Fudo Yusei...you're going to become a very, very powerful servant under my command...don't worry so much about that part."

Crow shut the door on Yusei's pod, and then the screens over head began to flicker. Immediately, Yusei felt a huge headache coming over him, a dizziness that ran to the back of his tongue and made him feel like he was going to throw up.

"Just relax," Jupiter's voice soothed through a microphone inside the pod. "This is only the first session; you'll likely come out of it with most of your normal brain function intact. It takes a few weeks of exposure before you fully submit...but it's better if you just accept that it's coming, that makes it hurt less."

Yusei almost screamed.

He couldn't describe what was happening to him—he felt like his entire body was starting to contract, but he wasn't moving at all. Sounds clattered around in his head, sounds that he couldn't pick out so that they just became a hellish cacophony in his mind. Images flashed over the screen but he had no idea what they were—only that they were filling his stomach up with an unimaginable horror.

"This is a concentrated version of the brainwashing program from the Callisto Project," Jupiter continued, but Yusei could barely listen to him. "It's far more potent, but it won't remove your soul to the Outlands. So you don't have to worry about that, either."

Yusei tried to close his eyes but he couldn't stop staring at the screen—couldn't stop staring at—

Where was he?

He wasn't in the pod anymore. He wasn't even in the facility anymore...he was...where...?

Was this what Jupiter had called the Outlands? No, he had described that as a place of complete darkness...this was anything but.

He was standing in what appeared to be a field made out of stars. They bobbed in an nonexistent breeze, on some kind of braided black stems as though they were tiny, glowing dandelions. They ranged between the colors of yellow, to white, to blue, growing up out of what looked like a thin sheet of water, but was as solid as a black mirror...it appeared to ripple every time Yusei shifted on it, though.

Overhead, the sky spread forever. Nebulae stained the spaces between the stars like coffee rings of color, pink red, green, blue, even some colors Yusei couldn't quite comprehend or name. His lips parted—where was he? He couldn't remember...couldn't remember seeing a place so peaceful...

One of the red nebula in the sky suddenly sparkled. Far away, a star silently exploded within it, becoming a bright supernova against the sky...or no...wait...

That was an _eye_.

The nebula seemed to peel itself off the sky, rippling as it solidified and Yusei felt his heart jump into his throat.

"Crimson Dragon," he breathed.

But this was nothing like the Crimson Dragon that he had ever seen before in his life. Before, the dragon had always seemed two dimensional and completely red.

This dragon was like a tube made out of a galaxy; although its outline rippled like a coursing pillar of water edged in red, it was almost see through, with stars, galaxies, and comets drifting around inside it. Yusei couldn't breathe. Was this...was this the Crimson Dragon's true form...? Was this place it's home? How had he gotten here...

The great head swung down before him. It's head was taller than he was, and as broad as three of him across. He could feel a hot, solar breath coursing over him from its nostrils, the heat of stars letting off the gas of their extra layers. Yusei couldn't breathe—this presence was so powerful, so ancient, so overwhelming...

 _Look._

It wasn't a voice so much as it was an echo, a feeling in his chest.

 _Look harder._

Look...where? Yusei couldn't breathe to ask, but the Dragon seemed to understand his thoughts.

 _The machine. It will open you to things you do not want to see. But you must look._

The...the Dragon wanted him to look into the brainwashing machine? It wasn't here to help them...?

 _I am not here to help. You must help yourselves, because I am you._

Yusei didn't—he didn't understand. What was the Dragon saying?

 _Use it. Use the power he uses against you against him. You are the Head. Your dominion is the mind._

 _Do not let yours be used against you._

And then Yusei was back, back in the pod, his mind and body screaming at the intrusion into his brain as whatever the machine was doing to him washed over him, tried to scrub every bit of him clean of his own personality.

"I'm saying this for your own good, Mr. Fudo, this will only go more poorly for you if you don't stop fighting."

Yusei's arm burned. The Dragon—the Dragon wanted him to look into the machine. This machine was—this machine was supposed to break him. It was supposed to break him apart and then put him back together for Jupiter's purposes. How would Jupiter do that? Subconsciously, something was being done to him...

What was he being shown in his subconscious?

Was that what the Dragon wanted him to look at?

Yusei swallowed.

 _The mind is your dominion._

 _Do not let it be used against you_.

He forced himself to look.

 **. . .**

 ** _Well,_** **Kiryu thought dizzily,** ** _I wish I could say this was my first time being punched through a wall._**

 **He had made a mistake; he hadn't thought he was underestimating Aki, but he definitely was. Whatever kind of crazy spell she was under right now, she was going absolutely** ** _psycho..._** **and that was coming from him.**

 **Aki screamed wordlessly as her vines writhed in a whirlwind around her. Every one of those thorns looked sharp and dangerous and if he didn't get up out of this rubble soon he was going to get killed for a second time.**

 **He heaved himself out of the rubble and bolted, letting Aki's vines snake down the hall after him. Ever since that sound had started playing through the halls, she had gotten more aggressive, and Kiryu wasn't sure he could hold out much longer. His Infernity monsters were doing their best, but Aki was apparently a higher attack than all of them because she kept shattering the Solid Vision. It was all Kiryu could do to keep drawing cards. He might run out of them soon—did this count like a normal duel, even? Could he just keep fishing cards out of the Graveyard? Fuck, he didn't fucking know!**

 **Kiryu darted around a corner, ducking under a vine that swept over his head—damn, she was getting faster!**

 **"Izayoi-san!" he shouted over his shoulder. "Izayoi-san, you have to stop this!"**

 **Aki only screamed—he almost, thought, for a moment, that he could hear her start to babble, something that he could almost understand—he caught words like "hurting him" "have to," and other things that Kiryu couldn't quite catch.**

 **Another vine punched over his head and left an actual hole in the wall. If he hadn't dodged that...**

 **Kiryu tried not to think about the possibility of dying a second time. The first had been bad enough, thank you, he didn't need to try out various ways to go out. Where had Yusei ended up going? This place was a goddamn maze, but Kiryu didn't want to accidentally lead the wild Aki to wherever Yusei was, probably trying to fight that Jupiter guy. He wondered where Jack was, too, and hoped the bastard hadn't gotten himself killed. If only Kiryu had a magical Signer sensor too—or at least, an idiot sensor.**

 **Kiryu ducked under another vine and bolted for a random door. It was locked so he bolted for the next one. His foot caught on a vine and he went careening to the floor—only his wire thin reflexes, honed from ages on the street, where enough to keep him rolling, just before a vine crushed him against the floor.**

 **"Izayoi!" he shouted again. "Goddammit! You don't want to do this!"**

 **Aki only started to babble again as she came around the corner, and Kiryu could see tears rolling out of her eyes. Dammit! That sound was really fucking her up; and whatever else had happened to her in this godsforsaken place wasn't help. He had to find a way to turn that sound off—**

 **Kiryu rolled back to his feet and ran again—wait, there, that door was hanging open!**

 **Kiryu bolted inside. This room was wide and open and—and lined with medical beds and—good** ** _lord._**

 **He almost came to a stop at the sight of the blood splattered beds but he couldn't stop running, so he kept going. He could hear Aki forcing herself through the door behind him, his heart in his throat. He glanced over his shoulder and almost screamed when he saw Aki pulling herself up the wall, her vines acting like giant kraken tentacles and pulling herself up towards the ceiling so that she could crawl after him from above. What kind of B-level horror movie was he living in?**

 **Kiryu swore again and made a break for the door on the other side of the room. Thankfully, it was open, and he slammed it shut behind him to maybe buy himself a few seconds of time.**

 **"Ah, I see you've joined us as well, Mr. Kiryu."**

 **Kiryu's blood froze, as his eyes flicked back to the new room. It was huge, white, and...and was that** ** _Crow?_** **What was he doing here? And why was he climbing into that egg shaped pod—oh god, better question, why was Yusei in the other one looking like he was screaming?**

 **"Yusei!" Kiryu screamed. "Crow!"**

 **He bolted across the room—skidding to a stop when a row of thick plastic prongs sprung up like a wire gate from the floor, blocking him from the other side of the room. Overhead, a balding man that must be Jupiter smiled down at him from the observatory deck.**

 **Kiryu grabbed the plastic and rattled it, threw his shoulder against it to try and punch through. A scream ripped from his throat with frustration as it refused to give.**

 **"Let them go!" he shouted. "You bastard, let them go!"**

 **Jupiter only shook his head, shrugging.**

 **"It's a pity, but I really have no use for you," he said. "Empty shells without power are of no benefit to the organization."**

 **Kiryu found himself actually snarling. He reached for his deck—maybe his Solid Vision monsters could punch through this!**

 **But then something snapped around his waist. He gasped as he felt something puncture into his skin around his waist and ripped him back. He tried to grab the fence to hold on, but it was too late, Aki had hold of him and she was lifting him up into the air as her vine squeezed tighter and tighter around him.**

 **"Miss Izayoi, if you would dispose of the trash for me," Jupiter said. He reached forward to turn some kind of dial, and the sound that had made Aki lose it got louder.**

 **Kiryu visibly saw Aki flinch, her hands clamping over her ears and her mouth opening in a silent scream. Kiryu clawed at the vine that held him, but Aki wasn't letting go, and despite the tears gushing out of her eyes, her other vines were rising up towards him.**

 **Kiryu had a sudden vision of the scattered body parts and the blood.**

 ** _Oh god_** **, he thought.** ** _I'm going to die again._**


	12. Time Scanner

Crow had figured out where the beasts were driving them to.

"C-Crow? Why did we stop?"

Crow ran his tongue over his dry lips. He could sense forward with his wind and...

Although he couldn't see it, he could feel it, feel the edges of his wind sense caressing over the pit that dropped off right in front of them. If they had been running entirely blind, they would have been driven in this direction by the screaming ghouls and tumble right into it...and into the spikes below.

 _We're being hunted_ , he thought with a chill, as he felt forward with the wind again, trying to judge how deep the pit was. _Like animals._

The pit was at least thirty, forty feet deep, and the spikes were very close together...if they fell, they'd be immediately impaled. He shuddered as he came across strange shapes protruding from the spikes, and after feeling around their edges with his mind, realizing that they were _bones_.

"Crow?" Luka said again. "Crow, we have to keep going—they're getting closer!"

She tried to step forward but he tightened his grip on her hand and yanked her back.

"You're going to fall into that," he said, trying not to make his voice tremble.

"What?" Luka said. "But I can't..."

He felt her foot move forward and almost slip off the edge and he yanked her back, both of them tumbling back into the sand away from the pit.

"W-what's in front of us?" Luka said, voice trembling.

"Breathe, Luka, it's going to be okay. It's—it's going to be okay."

Luka was crying so hard that she sounded like she was choking, and Crow hefted Lua higher on his back so that he could grab her with the other arm and hold her against his chest.

The scream rang out over them again—close. _Too close_. They were being cornered, and then they'd have to choose between the monsters or death in the pit. He felt out in all directions, but this pit seemed to stretch onward beyond the reach of his senses in both directions. This was end game, and Luka was hyperventilating and Lua appeared to have gone unconscious on his back from blood loss a while ago and Crow didn't have the time or the skills to try and help him in the full dark.

He wanted to scream—what was the point of this new power if he couldn't use it to protect them?

Lua moaned on his back as the screams grew louder, closer—Luka's sobs were getting more and more rocking as Crow hugged her tighter. He slipped Lua from his back and hugged him to himself, too, trying not to shake.

At the very least, he would go down shielding them—if that was all he could do, then—

Lua moaned again, mumbling in his sleep.

"A...ki..." he mumbled. "Aki..."

What? Why was he calling for...?

She couldn't breathe. The sound was—don't think about it, just follow the rules. The rules were to not think, to just do what she was told. The rules were to attack everything. Everything was an intruder and she had to get it away, get it away from her home. They were threatening her safety, and she had to destroy them.

Right?

Wait, who had told her that? And...which home...?

She thought of long, carpeted hallways, some kind of hotel...no, wait...that was...she hadn't lived there for a long time. It had...

She remembered it collapsing and she wanted to scream. The thing she had in her vines struggled and thrashed, and she remembered that she wasn't supposed to remember. She was only supposed to destroy the things that were threatening her home. She squeezed her vines tighter, could taste the blood on the ends of her thorns. The insect was shouting at her. She couldn't hear what it was saying, the noise in the back of her head was too loud. She just had to kill the insect in her vines and then the sound could stop and she could go back to sleep. Then everything was safe...

" _A...ki...Aki..."_

Huh? That voice was...where was it coming from?

She stopped squeezing the insect, trying to find the source of the voice.

" _Aki...neesan..."_

Who was that? It was familiar. Someone was calling to her. Someone...someone important. She had to remember.

She wasn't supposed to remember, though, right?

"Izayoi, what are you doing? Kill him."

R-right, she was...she was supposed to...

Why had she decided to start attacking? It was...it was because something was in trouble. Some _one_.

"Izayoi-san—Izayoi, you're still in there, right? Izayoi, please, Yusei is in trouble, you don't want him to get hurt, do you? Please, they're all in trouble, you have to remember. You have to remember them."

The sound in her head got _louder_ and she screamed. She was supposed to obey. She was supposed to just kill the things that got into her home.

But what was _home_?

She heard a door slam open behind her, heard a huffing set of breaths. The insect in her vines gasped out a name, and—and it was familiar.

"J-Jack, d-don't—"

"Kiryu—Izayoi! Izayoi, what the fuck are you doing?"

She turned—that voice, that voice was familiar, and she was supposed to...supposed to what? Her arm _burned_ and she screamed.

"Oh, how delightful," another voice said. "The last one is here, now. I'll have the full set soon enough."

"What the—what the fuck have you done to her? Izayoi, put him down!"

That voice was so _loud_! She gripped at her head as she turned to face it—he was just outside her nest of vines, tall and blond and he looked flushed, his white coat hanging open and torn, a small body cradled in his arms. That was...

" _Aki—Aki-neesan! Please, can you hear me?"_

That was...

"Lu...a?"

Her own voice terrified her for a moment, so much so that she released the insect in her vines. No, not an insect—a person. A person with silver hair, and he was bleeding badly, how deeply had her thorns gone? She felt sick—oh _god_ , she could taste his blood, coppery on her thorns as though they were her own tongue. She had _hurt_ him, and for some reason that was wrong, she couldn't remember why quite yet, but it was wrong.

"I-Izayoi," the man coughed, some blood around his lips. "I-Izayoi... _please_...Yusei and Crow...they're..."

Yusei...and...Crow...?

Her eyes whipped back to the blond man with the small body in his arms and she realized.

 _Lua. That's Lua._

 _But Lua is calling me._

 _Lua's soul isn't there, but his body is._

 _That means..._

" _Aki-neesan, please...please..."_

A scream echoed through her brain and she screamed too. There was another scream then, one in this plane of existence, from...from someone behind her, and she could hear the blond man shouting out a name that was important and she looked over her shoulder to see a big egg shaped pod and the shadow of someone flailing and screaming inside of it—

Oh.

 _Oh_.

"I have to protect them," she gasped, the realization of it seeping deep into her bones.

Kiryu coughed up blood into his hand, but luckily it just seemed to be from a bite inside his cheek, and not from any internal bleeding. His puncture wounds were pretty bad, but at least she wasn't ripping him to pieces. Jack stumbled around Aki's nest of vines, a limp Lua in his grip. He dropped to one knee and gripped Kiryu's outstretched arm with one free hand.

"Fucking hell," he swore, eyes looking wide. "What happened? What's going on?"

"Y-You found Lua, at least," Kiryu said, feeling dizzy. He couldn't quite focus on what was happening, and he hoped he hadn't lost too much blood to be fatal. He really, _reallllly_ didn't want to die again.

He saw, then, the lurching form of the basically brain dead Crow, and gripped Jack's arm tighter. All at once he noticed the dead look in Crow's eyes and the syringe in his other arm and he thought about how Yusei was trapped in that pod and screaming and how that man had said something about the "full set"—

"Jack, you need to get out of here," he managed to choke out. "You need to go!"

Jack's eyes flicked up to see Crow and his eyes widened and then—

A vine whipped out over their heads. Kiryu felt a scream rip out of his throat as it went for Crow—he wasn't all there but—oh god, no, he couldn't see Crow die—

The vine snapped at Crow's hand and he flinched, dropping the syringe and it shattered across the floor. Then it wrapped around his waist and lifted him up...gently?

Crow vaguely kicked but he mostly just lolled there, looking as though he were actually going to start drooling.

"Izayoi Aki!" the man called Jupiter shouted from the top room. "What are you doing? Kill Kiryu Kyosuke and leave the others!"

But Aki wasn't doing any thing of the sort. Her vines were spreading out, growing around the room and climbing up the walls. She pulled the limp Crow towards her, into the center tangle of her vines, and, almost as one might with a child, laid him gently down against a cradle of vines. Jack's eyes flicked up with surprise as he saw her vines starting to cascade down around them. One of them carefully slid underneath Kiryu and pulled him closer. He almost screamed, but then he realized how gentle she was being all of a sudden, how her vines didn't seem to have any thorns on them right now. The vines twisted underneath him like a stretcher until he had been dragged under the canopy of her vines. She pulled on Jack next but he didn't need to be carried, he just hefted Lua up and hurried towards Aki, dropping to a knee next to Kiryu. Aki's vines carefully closed in around them, her eyes wide and glassy as she stared forward, her face almost unreadable.

"I...Izayoi?" Jack said softly, brow wrinkled.

Her eyes flickered down towards them and her lips parted. She still looked so far away, so distant. As though her brain weren't quite there. Her hand reached out to touch Jack's hair briefly, as though reassuring herself that he was there and real.

"I...have to...protect..." she mumbled.

Jupiter let out a cry of frustration.

And then, with a soft catch of Aki's breath, a handful of vines rose up—and _punched_ through the air itself.

Lua wouldn't stop babbling. Just Aki's name, over and over again, crying out as though she were able to come to them. Crow tried to hold him as he flailed, but it was getting harder and harder—he was going to tumble off into the pit!

"Lua, you have to stop—stop!" Crow shouted.

The scream exploded inches from his ear and he screamed too in spite of himself. Luka shrieked and Crow tried to bend over both of them—he could feel a cold, icy presence washing over him, the edge of a sharp blade pressing against his back, almost pushing him as though encouraging him to drop off the cliff—Lua wouldn't stop _flailing—_

Lua's hand caught Crow against the temple and Crow gasped, releasing Lua. He felt Lua tumble backwards, he made a swipe for him and his fingers just barely brushed the edges of his jacket without catching it and Lua was falling into the pit—

Light exploded over Crow's eyes.

He screamed, clapping one hand over his eyes. He heard twin shrieks ring out behind him and the blade digging into his back vanished—when he managed to open his eyes, he could see...holes? Holes in the sky? White light poured through those holes along with what appeared to be long, sinuous shadows, like tentacles that slithered from another dimension.

No, more like...like vines, he realized. There were roses blooming along their edges, huge, glowing things like dying embers. And...and Lua was caught at the end of one of them. Crow felt an explosion of cold relief wash over his heart as he saw Lua grasped in that vine, held away from death in the pit and being slowly pulled back up towards the light.

Crow felt another vine tap him lightly on the shoulder, before carefully sliding around his waist. He kept his grip on Luka even as one picked her up around the waist too, lifting them both off of the sand and towards the holes in the sky.

For a second, Crow had to think—this isn't another monster, is it—but he already knew better.

"Aki," he breathed.


	13. SDI: Strategic Defense Initiative

_Yusei was falling._

 _He wanted to scream but there was no breath in his lungs—overhead, a city loomed, rising down out of the sky like some horrible mirror image—and yet he was falling in the opposite direction. He hurtled through thousands of feet of air and he—he couldn't stop, he couldn't free himself, he was falling and he was going to strike the ground and he was going to die._

 _And then the world was_ red _and fiery, blossoming over his eyes and burning across his retinas, and this time he_ did _scream. The entire world was fire, and he was still falling through it, his body twisting and writhing as he tried something, anything to get himself to stop falling, but there was nothing to grab onto, nothing to slow his descent. He was dropping into the flames and there was a laugh, rolling and horrible that vibrated through him as the fire seemed to open up like a giant maw, ready to swallow him whole—_

 _Then everything was_ black _. Not the black of darkness or shadows or space, but the black of...of charred wood and scorched earth. He was no longer falling, but he simply lay there, feeling trapped in his own impact crater—he did not remember hitting the ground, but he thought he must have, after falling all that way. He could not feel any part of his body. Twisting over his head, the charred, burnt out remains of buildings swayed, reaching up towards the black sky. Most of them were half torn down, glass windows shattered open like the eye sockets on a skull, their edges melted by whatever fire had razed through them. Huge spikes of debris stuck up out of the ground around him, blocking parts of his view._

 _The silence hung thick, oppressive, like soot or dust._

 _He blinked then, as all of a sudden, he floated above himself. He still couldn't feel his own body, couldn't move, but he could look, his eyes could flutter around the scene from above and—_

 _He saw himself, first, splayed out across the ground, eyes staring wide and glassy up at the sky. He felt a horrible skitter of panic as he saw the damage that falling had done to his body, and despite having no feeling he had the sense of vomit rising in his throat—he had to look away._

 _The rest of the scene was worse._

 _He wanted to scream, but he had no voice. Their names rang out in his mind instead._

Jack! Aki! Crow! Lua! Luka! Kiryu! Carly!

 _They were already gone. He could see Jack, blood staining the back of his white jacket from the light pole that had impaled him, his hand stretched out, frozen in time across the ground where it only barely touched Carly's fingers—Carly was curled half in the fetal position, her fingers brushing Jack's from where she lay half crushed under a car, glasses shattered across the space between them. Kiryu's face was stained with blood where he lay dead against a building, Lua and Luka were both flung unceremoniously to hang off of debris, Aki hung off a spike of debris that impaled her against a wall—all he could see of Crow was his arm hanging out from under a pile of rocks._

No, no, no, no, no, they can't be dead, they can't be—I can't have—

 _But he had no voice, no hands, no ability to move—he was nothing more than a pair of eyes, screaming silently at the horrible destruction and death that spread out before him. It was only him and the never ending silence._

Please! Wake up! Please! Come back!

 _But no one responded—was he...was he the only thing left in this world? The only consciousness left, forced to stay here forever and stare at the discarded bodies of his friends?_

 _He—_

Light exploded over his face. Someone was...someone was screaming. Someone was...

He realized, then that _he_ was the one that was screaming.

A buzzing, static screen hung in front of him off of its wires, swinging slowly. Yusei had to gasp for breath, his scream cutting off. What...where...

He couldn't move his wrists, but...there was something touching his head.

He squinted as he realized that there were...there were holes in the low roof over his head. And there were thin vines wriggling their way through as more vines were ripping holes in the pod, pulling it apart. The pod! That's where he was! He remembered now!

He flinched a little as the vines came for his head, but he realized with a start that they were popping the electrodes from his temples. More vines slid between his wrists and his restraints, snapping the restraints off of him, and then the vines slipped gently underneath him like a cradle, lifting him up out of the newly ripped hole in the top of the pod. As soon as he was free, he coughed, blinking at the light, his body trembling as he started to remember that his limbs existed.

"A...Aki," he managed to mumble.

She stood in front of him, hands outstretched, the vines protruding from somewhere between her fingers as she lifted him free.

She raised her arms up as the vines lowered him towards her, dropping him gently into her arms. He was a little too heavy for her, and she had to slide down to her knees to rest him against the ground, her arms still balancing against his back to help him sit up. He coughed again, trying to get his breath back. His eyes flickered up over her shoulder, and he could see—oh thank _god_ , he saw Kiryu, and Crow, and Jack, and Lua, and even Luka, all of them shielded protectively by a canopy of Aki's vines just a little ways away. Aki was...Aki was back, at least, part of the way. He looked back at her.

"Aki," he said again, feeling a cold relief pass through him. His mind flashed back to the horrible image of her impaled against a wall and he scrabbled to grab her hand, holding it tightly to reassure himself that the vision had been the dream and this was real. "Thank—thank god."

His voice cracked with the tears held back, but Aki barely responded. Her fingers flinched at first when he tried to grab her hand, and then, tentatively, wrapped back around his. She stared at him as one might stare at a puzzle, distant, considering, her eyes squinted and brow furrowing.

Her lips moved several times before saying anything.

"Yu...sei..." she mumbled.

"Y-yes, it's me," he said. "It's me. It's okay, Aki, you're safe— _I'm_ safe. We're all okay."

A scream broke through the intercom, making Yusei wince.

"Izayoi Aki, you _will_ obey me!" Jupiter screamed. Yusei heard a hand slam against something, and then the sound that had sent Aki crazy the first time _ripped_ through Yusei's ears.

Even _he_ screamed, clapping his hands over his eyes. He felt like—he felt like he was going to fall back into that vision—

For a moment, he felt Aki's hands tighten on him, felt her vines begin to writhe and flail, and he heard a scream escape her lips. He fumbled towards her—oh, god, no, he was going to lose her again—

But then he saw the furious flash in Aki's eyes, the way that the tears were forming at the corners, and her vines were all rising up as one towards—Jupiter.

Jupiter stumbled back from the glass as Aki's vines punched through all at once, shattering it. Yusei heard a scream escape the man from the scatter of glass—a scream that was quickly cut off as Aki's vines were on him. They snatched around him, dragging him free from the booth and out into the air. All Yusei could see through his blurry eyes was the man writhing in the vines' grip far over head, could see the thorns starting to sprout out of her vines in a wave from the base up towards where Jupiter was still screaming and writhing—

 _I should stop her_ , he thought suddenly. _She's—she's going to kill him. I need to—I need to stop her. I don't want Aki to become a—_

He fumbled for her, tried to grab her shoulders.

"Aki," he whispered hoarsely. "Aki...please. Don't—"

Her eyes cast down towards him, and his words stopped in his throat.

She looked...

She looked so _sad_.

She looked like she was about to burst into tears, her shoulders shaking. Her arms were still tight around Yusei, holding him in a hug against her. Her thorns briefly paused in their growth as Jupiter's struggles began to grow weaker.

"He..." Aki mumbled. "He...h-hurt..."

She didn't seem to be able to figure out who he was going to say that he hurt. Her tongue fumbled over a few sounds that might have been 'me', 'Lua', 'children.'

Yusei met her eyes—deep hazel glazed over with panic, uncertainty, fear, and overwhelming hurt and sadness—a brokenness that he couldn't even begin to understand. He thought about the bloodstained beds. The medical equipment. The brainwashing game. The pod where he had witnessed horrors while he was brainwashed. The dead eyes of the soulless Crow. Aki's panic, the sound that she had been conditioned to consider a fear stimulus and turned her into a monster. The kidnapped children.

The children who were never found.

His hand curled around Aki's arm as their eyes met again. No words passed between them.

Aki's thorns reached Jupiter.

There was one thick, sickening _squelch—_ and then Jupiter's scream cut completely off. Through Yusei's blurry eyes, he could see the shape grow limp in the vines.

Then the vines receded all at once, and the shape that was Jupiter crashed down to the ground with a sickening thud and squelch of blood. Aki let out a soft gasp, and the sound that blasted through the room finally, finally faded.

All at once, Aki's vines shot back, rushing away out of their tangle and returning to her, disappearing under her skin in a way that didn't quite make sense to Yusei's physical senses. Her arms trembled, and then, just as suddenly, she couldn't hold him up anymore.

"Aki!"

Yusei found his strength returning as he shot up and grabbed her before they could both fall over. She trembled against his chest, her arms too weak to even reach up and hug him back, instead sitting limply at her sides.

"Yu...sei..." she mumbled as though it were the only word left in her. "Yusei...Yusei..."

Yusei heard the clomp of boots and he looked up to see Jack rushing over to him.

"Are both of you okay?"

"S-She's tired, I think," Yusei said. "I...I'm okay."

He thought so, anyway...he wasn't sure if he could stand yet. He kept seeing flickers of those horrible visions running over his head...

And then the door blasted open, and Jack leaped up with a swear and Yusei heard Luka squeak and Crow swear and he grabbed Aki tightly and—

"This is Security!" bellowed the loud voice of Ushio. "I'm not dealing with anymore of your psychic bullshit so just—aw, fuck, it's just you guys!"

Yusei actually _laughed_ as he saw the bewildered, frustrated face of Ushio come into view. Against his chest, he heard Aki giggle too, and then Jack was going red too as Yusei just started laughing and he couldn't stop—

Oh _god_.

They had made it.

They were alive.


	14. Vigilante

"There are a few perks to having a few friends in law enforcement, huh?" Crow had said.

Yusei just rolled his eyes; he didn't have the strength for much else.

He had to agree, though, as he looked across the dark street, sitting on the edge of a sidewalk as Ushio shouted at a few other officers to shoo away from them, they didn't need to be bothered with questioning right now, he'd handle the report, just go take the psychic duelists they arrested to the station and he'd catch up with them. The landscape was filled with flashing red and blue lights and Yusei was just so _tired_ , he wanted to go back to the full darkness instead of these constantly spinning lights.

Aki lay heavily against Yusei's shoulder, her head lolling against his chest. Her arms were tight around his waist; as soon as she had gotten the strength back in her arms, she had grabbed hold of him and hadn't let go since. She hadn't spoken since they left the compound, either. When the paramedic came over to check on her, she had panicked, striking out at the woman to keep her away. Yusei had to explain, exhausted, that it would not help for Aki to see anything related to medical technology at this moment in time. The paramedic remained, though, looking very miffed as she stood there, wringing her hands. She had nothing to do since the other two paramedics were taking care of Kiryu and Crow and Lua in the ambulance, and Yusei and Aki didn't want her to get near. Yusei felt like he should try to convince Aki to have someone check her injuries, but he didn't want to press her, and it was a little discomforting for the paramedic to just be hovering over them even for him.

"Reiser, could you come over here and help me hold him up?" another paramedic finally called, and the woman walked away, finally leaving Yusei and Aki on their own.

Yusei stared blankly out at the flashing police lights.

It was...cold, he thought. Really cold. He hugged Aki a little tighter to try and keep the chill off of her.

"Aki?" he whispered.

Aki just huffed softly in response. He didn't know what he could say. 'Are you all right' seemed...insensitive, at best.

"And I'm telling _you_ that I am _fine!_ Now get your hands off me, I need to—no, I will _not_ sit still!"

A snort came out of Yusei before he could stop it, Jack's angry voice rolling over the otherwise quiet street. Yusei heard one of the paramedics protesting, but that didn't stop Jack's boots from scratching over the ground as he hopped from the ambulance and stalked over to Yusei, his coat flapping half off his arm from where he had clearly just had a blood pressure test. He pulled the sleeve angrily back over his arm and zipped the coat up as he reached Aki and Yusei and came to a stop in front of both of them.

He just stood there for a moment, staring down at them over his nose, hands in fists at his sides.

And then his face softened. He knelt down in front of them and put his hand on top of Aki's, his cutting eyes meeting her gaze despite her attempt to duck her head away.

"Izayoi," he said. "You weren't wrong."

For a second, Yusei felt Aki tense up in his arms, her body almost shaking from how tightly she pulled in on herself.

And then she was crying.

Tears rolled in messy streaks down her cheeks, her nose running as she curled up on herself and sobbed, her words almost incoherent in between. _"_ _I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I hurt you, I—I killed him, I killed so many of them, I'm horrible, I should be arrested I should_ die _I shouldn't have killed him—"_

Jack's hand tightened around Aki's as Yusei pulled both his arms around Aki's shoulders.

"No, no, no," Yusei said. "No, Aki..."

"I just said you weren't wrong, dumbass," Jack said with a low growl, but his voice was soft. "You weren't wrong to kill him."

"Can I second that?" Kiryu's drawling voice echoed over the space. Yusei looked up to see Kiryu wandering over, his arm in a sling and a paramedic trailing him, weakly insisting that he shouldn't be walking around either. Crow, Lua, and Luka were also scrambling out of the ambulance and running over.

Aki looked like she was about to have a break down, her nails digging into Yusei's arm.

"I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry," she sobbed over and over again. "K-Kiryu-san, I almost k-killed you..."

"Takes more than that to kill me—trust me, I _know_ ," Kiryu said, shrugging.

Lua and Luka both ran around Aki and threw themselves at her other side, hugging her and crying too.

"A-Aki-neechan, you heard me and you saved us," Lua cried.

"You rescued us Aki-neesan," Luka cried. "You got us out of there! I—I thought we were going to die..."

Crow leaned over and patted his hand on Aki's head, briefly rubbing under her hair reassuringly.

"Lua was going to fall before you caught him, Aki," he said softly. "You saved our lives."

"B-but I...I..." Aki mumbled. "I-I'm s-sorry, I'm...I'm a m-monster..."

Yusei only hugged her tighter, pressing his face against the top of her head. Crow knelt down then to so that he could wrap his arms around everyone, and even Kiryu leaned in to give them all a one-armed hug.

"Aki," Yusei whispered. "...I would have killed him too."

Aki shook her head against his chest.

"I'm as bad as h-he was," she mumbled. "I-I'm just as bad."

"The fuck you are," Kiryu muttered. "That man killed children for fun."

"He would have kept hurting and hurting if he hadn't died," Jack said, holding Aki's gaze so that she couldn't look away. "He would have kept hurting _you_."

"You're not a bad guy, Aki!" Lua said.

"You're our friend and you protected us," said Luka.

"Those people hurt you and so many others so badly," Crow said softly. "You don't have to forgive them."

Yusei could feel her shaking, but the tears were starting to slow, and she quickly wiped at her eyes.

"We don't think you're a monster," he said. "You're Izayoi Aki...and you're the one that saved our lives tonight."

Something in Aki seized up briefly. And then she was sobbing again, melting into the huge group hug, still babbling...only this time, it was _"_ _thank you, thank you, thank you,"_ over and over again.

Yusei wasn't sure how long they all sat there in their ball of a hug, but he knew that he felt warm...he felt safe.

Everyone was alive...everyone was okay. They had all made it out alive...

The vision of his friends dead and broken across the ground flashed over his mind and he almost choked. He felt Kiryu shift slightly and he knew that Kiryu had noticed, but he tried not to bring attention to it.

Yusei looked down and tightened his grip on Aki, on the people around him.

 _The machine. It will open you to things you do not want to see. But you must look._

The Dragon had told him that. Why? Why did the dragon want him to see those horrible, horrible visions?

He swallowed, and let himself be enfolded into the grip of his friends.

Later.

He could think about it later.


End file.
